Fred Homer lives up a back road in Williamsville. He’s 85 and is married to Deb Feiner, a physical therapist practicing cranio-sacral therapy. Their two children are married and live away. But today, Fred and Deb share their home and have for years with a 13-year-old Barred Owl named Stella along with other recuperating rescue birds in rescue cages out in the barn or basement.
Stella was found by a jogger thirteen years ago on nearby Rte 30 lying on the side of the road bleeding from the mouth. Her right eye was damaged, but she was passive and alive, probably having been hit by a vehicle. The jogger called The State Police who in turn contacted the local Fish and Wildlife offices who, in the case of bird injuries, contacted Fred Homer, a licensed Bird Rehabilitator with 40 years of experience. The owl was delivered to Fred and she’s been with him and Deb for 13 years. Stella could not be returned to nature as she is blind in her right eye and owls need binocular vision to hunt. She lives in the midst of family life, there on a perch on a kitchen counter and goes into a cage in the basement at night. She stands about 20” high, with light gray and white feathers with black striations and big piercing black eyes. (Google for pictures of this striking owl.) She was utterly self-composed in a stranger’s presence and looked me in the eye with curiosity. When I petted the back of her neck at Fred’s invitation, my immediate thought was, “I thought silk was soft!” As Fred told me, “Our two children, Kestrel, our daughter, and our son Cooper, grew up for several years with Stella and thought every family had a pet wild bird.”
Fred’s interest in the natural world came early to him, and his mother knew it. He was born in Merchantville, NJ in 1938, not far from Philadelphia, just across the river. He lived with his parents and sister Marian in a spacious architect-designed old house. His mother especially encouraged him as a young boy to explore the woods, streams and fields surrounding the house.
“My parents gave me, as a kid, the entire 3rd floor of the house. That was my haven. Over the years of childhood, I had snakes and turtles up there and beautiful rocks and bits of lovely wood. I would come in with some old rock and my Mom would say, ‘Oh, Fred, it’s so muddy, but go ahead, just wash it off.’ Once my garter snake got lost and she found it in the laundry basket. That’s when I had to agree to secure my cages. Up there I also had up what I called my Geological Shelf for beautiful rocks. I also displayed my skull collection: a cat, dog, a squirrel and a deer mount with antlers, a turtle carapace…..
“I went to the Merchantville public schools until my second year in high school but my best secondary education was at Moorestown Friends School. Miss Armstrong was an important influence who enjoyed and encouraged my writing. I then went on to Guilford, a Quaker college in Greensboro, North Carolina. After graduation and marriage, I floundered. I worked for Travellers Insurance and when my sixth month review came up, I admitted I was not cut out for selling insurance. I got a job at a car-wash.
“But the real positive change came when I got a temporary teaching certificate and taught 5th grade at a tiny school in Hainesport outside Mooretown, NJ. I loved it. The kids and I set up aquariums and terrarium. We spent a lot of time outdoors and the kids read and wrote about the natural world. I guess that way I could continue my childhood.
“I went from there to teach 5th grade at Cherry Hill School for four years and then realized I had to get back to the woods. In 1968 I applied for a job teaching 5th grade in Whitingham, Vermont. I got the job and stayed for eight years. We had a Great Horned Owl in the classroom, tadpoles, two box turtles, rodents, guinea pigs, a ferret, baby squirrels, Monarch butterflies…. The room was alive and the kids loved being there and the administration was tolerant. (During that time my first wife and I had two kids: Tacy and Dana, but we divorced.)
“Then I taught 5th grade again at a school in Rowe, Massachusetts for three years. In a way I was going deeper and deeper into the woods. When the principal retired, the school asked me to become principal. I did that for one year when I realized I was managing a business. It was time to leave teaching. I was inspired by Percey Dodge, a blacksmith in Whitingham I spent time with and took a job with Lee Morrell at his forge in Brattleboro. After five years being single I married Deb Feiner. We have had two children: Kestrel is now 40 and a guidance counselor in Minneapolis; Cooper is 34 and is a fine woodworker in Burlington.
“I’ve been in Vermont now for 55 years. I didn’t know it early on, but it was clearly where I was meant to be. Through Bill Murray, a realtor just starting out at Berkeley and Veller Realtors in Brattleboro in 1983, we found a lovely but broken-down house and barn in Williamsville. And as Bill drove up to the house he wanted to show us, his muffler fell off. We met scrambling under his car to repair his muffler and then got out from under his car to look at a broken-down house that needed a new roof and a dilapidated barn. We signed on the dotted line. I knew of the infatuation of working to restore a dilapidated place. I haven’t had a steady job these 41 years thanks to Deb working at Brattleboro Hospital while I work here every day. We tore down the dilapidated barn and Dan and Gary MacArthur from Marlboro built a new barn frame and we had an old-fashioned barn-raising.
“I added a dirt-floored blacksmith’s shop to the barn so I could work with metal and put a woodstove in so I could work there year-round. I set up a woodworking shop so I could create sculptures from interesting wood I found in the woods all around our place.
“Then one day Ron Svec, a veterinarian in Dummerston, called knowing of my interest in wild birds. He shared that interest as the only vet in the lower half of Vermont who worked with wild birds. He asked if I had any space in the barn for a Broad-Winged Hawk he had worked on. That got me started with caring for recuperating wild birds. I set up a stall immediately for Ron’s hawk, then later, for other raptors as well as smaller songbirds. I registered under the sponsorship of Ron Svec, took course work, took a state exam and now have licenses from The Fish and Wildlife Commission and the federal government.
“Over the last 40 years, birds come to me from the VT Wildlife Rehabilitation Association, veterinarians, State Police, Fish and Wildlife offices or individuals. Once a guy was driving on Rte 9 a few years ago and saw a Broadwing Hawk on the side of the road. It had been hit but no broken bones and was very thin. It just needed a safe home and food. He brought it to me. I fed the hawk, looked after him and two weeks later released him back to the wild. I feed hawks mice people give me in frozen form and thaw them when it’s time to feed. Anyone can give me frozen mice that have been trapped – not poisoned - if they’d like. Go to a local site within “Front Porch Forum” on the web for details.”
“Another time a guy was walking the woods one November when he came upon a Bald Eagle that couldn’t fly. Ron Svec x-rayed. Its wing was broken but had healed. He couldn’t reset the bone because it had calcified. I fed it pieces of liver and heart and ultimately I sent it to a nature center in Massachusetts.
“And my rewards? I get to interact with these magnificent birds. And I have met the most diverse people. A couple pulled up one day in an old broken-down pickup. There was a six-pack of beer on the floor, an old bearded guy driving and his wife was sitting in the passenger seat holding a Great Blue Heron wrapped in a blanket. Or there was the time when a woman in a brand-new Mercedes convertible pulled up. There was a wine glass on the console and an injured songbird in a shoebox in the passenger seat.”
Before leaving the interview, Fred invited me to see his blacksmith’s shop in the old barn. He showed me several cubic-yard bird enclosures he’d made for ailing hawks and birds of all kinds. He showed me a raven in a horse stall for some R and R. There is also a card stapled to a wall that reads “Hope is a thing with feathers”. He told me about the time Stella, his Barred Owl now living in the kitchen went with he and Deb, to their son’s wedding. “He goes to funerals with us sometimes too.”
And speaking of which: Fred has built a coffin for himself that he stores there in the barn. On its sides Fred has stapled quotes and messages to him that will be buried with his coffin. One is a quote from something Teddy Roosevelt wrote: “Comparison is the thief of joy.” Another reads, referring to Fred, “He lived in heaven before he died.”
This is one of a series of some 30 profiles of working people from southern Vermont and adjacent New Hampshire that I wrote and then published in the Brattleboro Reformer newspaper every Friday from Jan 1 - May 30. Do the same with your local newspaper.