Megan Palmer Rivera, a fifth-generation member of the Palmer’s family, will tell the story of Palmer’s Market, one of Darien’s most enduring retailers, which recently celebrated its 100th anniversary. As a Darien institution that generates tremendous customer loyalty, Megan says Palmer’s owes its success to decades of evolution to meet the changing needs of area shoppers as well as its reputation for community service. Her great-great-grandfather Rocco Palmer established Palmer’s in the old Noroton Heights Center in 1921, although its roots go back to the early 1900s as a family-owned butcher shop in Stamford. Few family-owned businesses survive into the 3rd generation. Now the 4th and 5th generations of Palmer’s are running the business and the family’s vision over the years transformed a simple market into a supermarket in the 1950s and in more recent years as a one stop shopping destination including groceries, restaurant-quality prepared foods, flowers, a bakery, gift baskets, catering, and even guided tours to Italy and other destinations around the world.
Megan grew up working alongside her mother and grandfather at Palmer’s Market and always dreamed of becoming a chef. After high school, Megan attended The Culinary Institute of America, where she received her Culinary Arts Degree. She went on to study at the CIA’s St. Helena Campus, where she graduated as Class Valedictorian, adding a Baking and Pastry Arts Degree to her resume. After graduating, she opened Palmer’s Bakery, and four years later took over as Executive Chef, overseeing the production kitchen at the market and, the following year, launched Palmer’s Catering & Events. She has added 30 new positions to the company. In 2018 she took over as Palmer’s Managing Director. At the helm of a company that just celebrated 100 years in the business, her main focus is ensuring that Palmer’s will be around to support 100 more years of service to customers, employees, and local non-profits and charities. She will be sharing a documentary that was created for their anniversary.
Arranged by Charles Salmans
Hamish Lutris is Associate Professor of History and Political Science at Capital Community College, Hartford, where he receives top ratings from students as an engaging lecturer. He credits his ability to teach with a job when he was in college as an interpretive ranger at Gettysburg National Military Park, where his job was to talk about the battle and cemetery where Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg address. “With over 1.5 million visitors a year, not only was my job to provide accurate information, but to also entertain.” He has worked in some of America’s premier natural and historical sites, leading hiking and historical programs. He has also lectured extensively in the United States, Europe, and Canada, presenting programs on wide-ranging historical topics, including Native American history, the Civil War, Scientific History, Social and cultural history, World War I, World War II, and the American West
Mark Albertson, who is well known to DMA members as an entertaining and informative speaker and historian, will talk about George Washington’s Farewell Address, delivered in 1796. It’s one of the best by any departing president. Washington offers an array of prognostications along with his concerns, a number of which, unfortunately, have arisen over the course of our history. Washington himself, of course, is fascinating. He was a large landowner. He was a slaveowner. But here is a man who had the opportunity to take control of the country as General of the Army and refused to do so. Here is a man who served his two terms as president and then willingly vacated the highest political office in the land, setting the precedent of the two-term presidency. Into the 20th century all second term presidents willingly leave office. That is American Exceptionalism. America was blessed from the historical perspective that George Washington was not another Julius Caesar, Oliver Cromwell, or Napoleon Bonaparte, which is something that comes around once every Haley’s Comet.