Theresa Maggio

 Free benefit screening of "Bills Lumber" at

Williamsville Hall

October 25, 2025

7 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.

To benefit the Dead Mouse Fund 

so that Fred Homer, Williamsville's own certified wildlife rehabilitator can feed rescued raptors without digging deeper into his own pocket. People can bring frozen non-poisoned dead mice, one per baggie, to donate. We'll have a cooler.

Should be fun! Congenial brothers, Everett and Alan Bills, plan to be there for their longtime friend, Fred. After the 45-minute movie all three octogenarians will take questions and tell stories. Theresa Maggio's Bills Lumber describes the history and last days of a beloved antique sawmill in Wardsboro and the Bills family that ran it. Earlier this year it played to SRO crowds all around Windham County, Vermont.

If you cannot come to the screening and want to deliver mice to Fred Homer, call him first. If you want to write a check, send to Fred Homer, P.O. Box 94, Williamsville, Vermont 05362.

From the "Vermont Journal" for a 2025 spring screening of Bills Lumber.:

"The 45-minute film by filmmaker Theresa Maggio chronicles the closing chapter of the Bills family's 86-year-old sawmill, built in 1936 by Melbourne Bills and operated for generations by his children and grandchildren. Audiences will meet Alan and Everett Bills, octogenarian brothers with deep roots in the region, and Debbie Bills Bauer, their niece and co-owner, as they bid farewell to a piece of Vermont history.

With heartfelt stories of fire, flood, and family, the film paints a vivid picture of life on "Bills Hill," where resilience and tradition shaped a way of life. Filmed during the summer and fall of 2023, Bills Lumber documents not only the mill's physical demolition, but also the emotional weight of closing a family chapter.

Already drawing sold-out audiences across the West River Valley, the film has been called a "gift" by viewers – lauded for its emotional resonance, humor, and historical significance.

Following the screening, Alan and Everett Bills will join the audience for a special Q&A session, offering firsthand insights into the stories behind the sawdust.

Don't miss this rare opportunity to honor a beloved Vermont legacy and hear directly from the men who lived it."

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Bills Lumber will be screened as a Sunday matinee at 4:30 p.m. on 27 April 2025. Address is 4 Mountain Park Plaza, West Dover, Vermont, just off Vermont Route 100 S.This 181-seat theater in the mountains has the highest quality proection and sound. This will be the twelfth and one of the last public screenings of Bills Lumber, so if you haven't made it to the first eleven, this is your chance! Alan and Everett Bills plan to be at the screening to answer questions and maybe tell a few stories after the screening. Admission is by donation. Donations will be split 50/50 between the non-profit cinema and Brattleboro Community Television (BCTV), both sponsors of this movie.

--------(Townshend, VT)------- The public is invited to a free screening of "Bills Lumber," a 45-minute documentary about the last days of the Bills family's beloved 86-year-old sawmill in Wardsboro, Vermont. Dutton Gym is next to Leland and Gray High School at 2030 Vermont Route 30 in Townshend. Showtime is 7 pm on Saturday, 5 April 2025. Snow date is Sunday, 6 April.

The video follows octogenarian brothers Alan and Everett Bills and their co-owner niece, Debbie Bills Bauer, after the mill sold along with 433 adjoining wooded acres, as they prepare to demolish the working sawmill that their late father, Melbourne Bills, had established in 1936. Great storytellers, Alan and Everett talk about what it was like to grow up on "Bills Hill," their family compound on Route 100 in Wardsboro, recounting harrowing tales of fire and flood with equanimity and a good laugh.

"These are amazingly resilient people," said video maker Theresa Maggio. "I feel lucky to know them."

     Free admission but any donations will be split 50/50 between my sponsoring non-profit, Brattleboro Community Television, and Leland and Gray High School's theater department. The Dutton Gym is where they put on their plays. I will be selling DVDs of the movie for $10 at the screening.

I woke up this morning to a Facebook message from a mutual friend in Palermo that Mario Corrao, this golden-haired sweet man, had died during the night of a prolonged illness. Rest in peace, Mario. He was Piero's first cousin and lived in our street, Via Terza Compagnia.

--------(Brattleboro, VT)------- The public is invited to a free screening of "Bills Lumber," a 45-minute documentary about the last days of the Bills family's beloved 86-year-old sawmill in Wardsboro, Vermont. Showtime is 4 pm on Sunday, 23 February 2025.

The video follows octogenarian brothers Alan and Everett Bills and their co-owner niece, Debbie Bills Bauer, after the mill sold along with 433 adjoining wooded acres, as they prepare to demolish the working sawmill that their late father, Melbourne Bills, had established in 1936. Great storytellers, Alan and Everett talk about what it was like to grow up on "Bills Hill," their family compound on Route 100 in Wardsboro, recounting harrowing tales of fire and flood with equanimity and a good laugh.

"These are amazingly resilient people," said video maker Theresa Maggio. "I feel lucky to know them."

Maggio had interviewed the formidable Melbourne Bills, the sawmill's founder, and his wife, Mabel, in the early 1990s when she was a reporter for the Brattleboro Reformer. Some 30 years later, when she learned from Everett's son that the mill had been sold, "I knew I had to tell the story. Theirs was a world fading away."

Alan and Everett Bills are so popular that its premiere at Williamsville Hall in Newfane was standing room only. Many people could not get into the hall. After the premiere, the brothers answered questions and told a few stories. "The love in the room was palpable," Maggio said. A fan in the audience was moved to lead the crowd in a round of Auld Lang Syne. A second showing was standing room only. Alan and Everett plan to answer questions for 15 minutes after the Latchis screening.

The video was mostly taped the summer and fall of 2023. "I drove back roads a half hour up to the mill several days a week to capture the demolition and removal of the sawmill, the debarker and the planer shed," Maggio said. Seeing them having to destroy their father's legacy was so sad that "every day I drove home crying." But in the end, the Bills's buoyant spirits vanquish all.

"I am thrilled to think that these local folk heroes will be seen on the big screen under the Latchis's lapis lazuli ceiling in the very garden of the gods."

After its first two local screenings, audience members wrote to Maggio.

Joan Elliott, of Wardsboro, wrote on Facebook,"We will never forget how Everett and Alan helped us after Irene when we lost our bridge. Ever grateful to these wonderful, generous men."

Jan Robinson Hull, of Wardsboro, who grew up with the Bills brothers, wrote: "I know this story is dear to many, many people in the area. You got it!... It brought many viewers to tears...We were all very poor, but we didn't know it, we had loving parents and when we got a gift...it was cherished. To me, you have given us the story of the Bills Mill – it is a gift to all of us."

Laura Wallingfor-Bacon of Williamsville wrote that the documentary was "so important to future generations just as Porter Thayer's photographs are to our generation."

Jill Dean of Wardsboro wrote: "My husband and I got the very last seats in the back row and we were 30 minutes early... What a great movie!"

• Due to expected bad road weather, the Latchis Theatre has cancelled this Sunday's Feb 16 screening of Bills Lumber and will show it instead next Sunday, Feb 23, at 4 pm.

Press release in today's The Commons weekly events calendar