Stowe son talks Trapps, linzertorte and foster parenting

“My head thinks I’m 20. My body thinks I’m 75,” he said, laughing.

Actually, Faye is 73, and he emphasized to the three different friends he’s fine. He still hunts and fishes passionately, and made his annual pilgrimage to his deer camp in Maidstone this year, accompanied by his son Josh, and while the pair didn’t get any deer, they sure did see a few worth writing home about.

Faye is something of a Stowe institution. Since he moved here in 1966, he’s managed the Stowe Boy Scouts of America troop, raised 56 children, baked and oversaw pastries and desserts at Trapp Family Lodge for 33 years, and watched the town grow and change.

Pastries

Faye grew up in St. Johnsbury, the son of a father who both fought fires and owned a garage. He graduated from St. Johnsbury Academy in 1963 and assumed he’d take over his dad’s garage, but at 72, his father decided to close up shop, instead.

So Faye got a maintenance job at the Mount Washington Hotel in Bretton Woods, N.H., which worked out great until he was in the kitchen fixing a gas leak and a cook quit on the spot.

The head chef, infuriated, threw an apron at Faye, who was closest by, and demanded he finish out the night in the cook’s place.

And the foundation for the rest of his life was laid, just like that.

Faye had been a camp cook as a Boy Scout, and “kind of knew my way around a kitchen,” and by the time he’d finished out the night, the head chef had calmed down and asked if he’d like to switch to kitchen work for $200 per month more.

Done.

“I just blurted out, ‘You got yourself a cook!’”

Faye moved to Stowe in 1966 and began working for an inn here, often frequented by Johannes and Maria von Trapp. They liked his cooking so much that Maria “came to the kitchen and tried to hire me in front of my boss,” Faye said.

“I was kind of embarrassed, and said no,” he said.

Faye left eventually, and took a job directing food and beverages for National Life Insurance Co. in Montpelier, “mostly feeding executives,” he said.

After a company shakeup, he came back to Stowe and started a restaurant with a partner, Stanchion.

As Faye tells it, things were smooth until his partner left abruptly with a large sum of money, and Stanchion had to close.

Johannes von Trapp offered him a choice — he could be a chef at Trapp Family Lodge if a new hire didn’t work out, or he could take a job right then as a pastry chef.

He opted for pastry chef, and spent more than 30 years crafting pastries for the von Trapp family and their guests at Trapp Family Lodge.

Faye was there for the fire in 1980 that burned down the lodge.

In his book, “Now That’s a Linzertorte,” Faye describes it as “the worst night that anyone can remember.”

Faye’s copper pots melted, and the Christmas gifts he’d been hoarding at work for his children were destroyed.

“The loss was hard for all of us,” he said.

Faye was part of the family while he worked there.

Maria von Trapp asked everyone to call her “Mother,” he said, and around the holidays, she’d ask staff members what they wanted for Christmas.

Sure enough, they’d find their wishes, wrapped under a Christmas tree.

“Christmas was a true celebration,” Faye said. “(Celebrations) were quite intimate.”

The title of his book stems from a search with Maria von Trapp to craft a linzertorte, a fruity tart from Austria, that would remind her of home.

Faye and von Trapp tried recipe after recipe, trying to track down that elusive taste of home, until Faye hit upon a secret ingredient.

“Now that’s a linzertorte,” von Trapp exclaimed, overjoyed.

Faye went on to make 2,500 of them for a TV shopping channel, and they all sold out in six minutes.

Foster parenting

It took about 10 years for Faye and his wife, Bonnie, who died in 2000 after a heart aneurysm, to have their two biological children, Tori and Josh Faye.

In the meantime, short on cash, the couple decided to take advantage of a parenting class being offered by the state in exchange for $2.75 per hour, to encourage good parenting.

Shortly after taking the class, someone from the Vermont Department for Children and Families asked if the Fayes would be willing to take in a little girl, Angela, and her brother, John.

“A weekend turned into 10 years,” Faye said.

He and Bonnie adopted Angela and John, and Faye has four children today.

But he and Bonnie fostered about 52 more, he reckons.

“Before you knew it, I put an addition on the house and filled it with kids,” he said, smiling.

He and Bonnie were recognized as foster parents of the year in both Chittenden and Lamoille counties, and represented Vermont at a nationwide foster parenting convention before Bonnie’s death.

“We never used the word ‘foster’ in our house,” Faye said; the children who lived with them were their kids, period.

“The thing I learned that surprised me the most is that kids don’t think like adults,” he said, and parents need to meet them where they’re at.

To be a good foster parent, you need “patience, and the ability to love those kids like your own,” he said. “There are so many children who need a safe home. All you need to be is caring and loving.”

Faye was hospitalized about six years ago with a blood infection that had made its way into his spine. His legs were paralyzed, and doctors told him he’d never walk again.

“I woke up, and somebody was holding my hand,” Faye said. One of his foster sons had come to the hospital with his wife and children.

“‘Do you remember me?’” the young man asked, Faye said. “‘I heard you were in the hospital and I had to come and see you.’ … That was my payback for being a foster parent.”

After years of physical therapy, Faye’s walking just fine, he said, and still keeps in touch with many of his foster children.

Faye, who now lives with his girlfriend, Patty, in Essex Junction, says Stowe’s not the town where he landed way back when.

“It’s grown to three times what it was,” he said. “Change is good. Most of the old-timers will tell you it was better in the old days,” but Faye thinks things are looking up.

He thinks the growth, paradoxically, contributes to the lack of volunteerism — fire and Emergency Medical Services departments need more volunteers, and Faye said while he was scoutmaster in Stowe, the Boy Scout troop eventually disbanded because not enough parents were willing to get involved.

“It certainly was a more intimate town” when he arrived, he said.

Oh, and that secret linzertorte ingredient? Red currant jelly.