After Willey Farms burns, loyal community unleashes its love
Honk if you love Willey Farms. The market family hears you, and they appreciate it.
But even before the flames devouring the family-owned marketplace died out Monday, faithful customers and longtime friends have been doing more than sounding car horns.
"That's who our people are," said Gretchen Willey-Gill of the market's founding family.
Firefighters arrived outside the burning marketplace in the early hours of Monday morning but couldn't put down the flames before the iconic market was reduced to a smoldering ruin. Two firefighters were hurt and a family's livelihood went up in smoke.
Some brought food for the family even while the flames were still alive. Others have shared old and fond memories. More than a few prayers have been said since Monday.
Signs went up Monday encouraging passing drivers to honk their horns, and Tuesday afternoon those jarring car beeps still were ringing out on the roads outside the rubble.
"A lot of people who were offering to help clean up don't really know there's nothing here to clean up," Willey-Gill said. "But I love the offer. It has been a salve to me."
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Willey Farms was founded by the late Donald and Irene Willey 43 years ago. The couple had six children and the market is now run by family members and loyal employees.
All of them woke up Tuesday morning without a job.
"Yesterday was such a blur and this morning it all just sank in," said Marketing Coordinator Donna Cavender.
Willey Farms is a muddy, burnt mess, a sprawling field of blackened rubble where a bustling market complex once stood. It smells of burnt wood.
Pieces of charred produce litter the grounds. Whole portions of roofs are collapsed over shelves. Individual portions of the complex remain standing, but useless. Only some of the buildings on the outermost perimeter, such as the nursery, survived the inferno.
Willey Farms was a sprawling market on Dupont Parkway that offered local fruits and vegetables, candy, natural and organic foods and specialty groceries.
Its deli sold sandwiches, hot soup, sliced luncheon meat and cheese. The garden center had shrubs, houseplants and flowers, home decorations and locally-made gifts.
"There's nothing left," Willey-Gill said. "There's nothing here."
Inspectors were investigating the scene Tuesday morning, but Assistant State Fire Marshal Michael Chionchio said its still not clear what started the fire. Willey-Gill said she believes it began somewhere on the north end, where the kitchen and deli were.
During its peak spring and summer months, Willey Farms employs as many as 100 people, Cavender said. At the time of the fire, the fall season, that number is about 60.
"There are area businesses going all the way down to Rehoboth that are offering our employees the possibility of a job," Cavender said.
The business recently had accumulated about 30 orders for fresh turkeys for the Thanksgiving season, and right now they're unsure if they'll be able to fill them.
They're hopeful Christmas tree sales will be unaffected, but they're still not sure.
Plans for the future seem to the Willey Farms family almost impossible to pin down.
They watched a family legacy burn Monday in a scene they said was simply "surreal."
"We kept thinking it would stop or they would get control of it, but it never happened. We were making plans as it took each place. 'We can move produce to the gift area, we can move the gift area to the greenhouse.' It just kept moving," Willey-Gill said.
Though they're still in shock, already they know they Willey Farms will rise again.
"How do you rebuild 43 years? It will probably have to be piece by piece by piece again," Willey-Gill said. "We can do that."
Contact Adam Duvernay at (302) 319-1855 or aduvernay@delawareonline.com Contact Patricia Talorico at (302) 324-2861 or ptalorico@delawareonline.com.
