FARMINGTON – No matter where she traveled, and Lillian Nordica traveled the world over, she held in her heart a longing to return to the homestead where she was born.

This Sunday, that 150-acre estate, also known as Norton Woods, will play host to the 75th annual Nordica Days, an event to honor Nordica and keep her singing spirit alive.

It will be the first opportunity for many to tour the home since it was renovated during the cold winter months that make up the off-season. The museum will be open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and admission will be free.

For Bonnie and Quenten Strom, it will be a first as well. The couple was hired on as caretakers of the estate last winter and this is their first time presiding over the homestead Nordica Days.

So far, Bonnie had led 150 people on tours through the museum, and the guest book is filled with names from France to Farmington, Washington state to Wilton.

Coming home

Born in the house as Lillian Norton in 1857, Nordica and her family lived there until she was 3 before moving to town. The house stayed in the family for a time, before falling out. Fifty years later and now a successful opera singer, Nordica regained her birthplace when her sister Annie Baldwin purchased the estate and then deeded it to her.

Busy touring the world and stretching her vocal cords before kings and queens, Nordica didn’t return to the homestead until taking a vacation in 1911. It was during that trip that she gave the town of Farmington a performance of a lifetime, free of charge, lighting up the stage on Aug. 17 with the glow of her singing in what is now known as Nordica Auditorium at the University of Maine at Farmington’s Merrill Hall.

“It was a great day for Farmington, the greatest of a week made notable by her presence and unfailing democracy,” an article in the Boston Sunday Post said at the time. “For an hour, she sang, in English and in French, the songs that have helped to make her famous in the operatic world.”

Now, each year on Aug. 17, Nordica Auditorium swells with song as a free concert is performed to honor her last legendary performance in Farmington.

Soprano Sarah Griffith of Portland will perform there at 7 p.m.

It’s a fitting celebration, Bonnie believes.

Dying in 1914, Nordica never returned home despite her dying wish to do so.

“Often she was heard to say she longed to be back in her childhood home,” Bonnie explained. “One of her last wishes was that her ashes come back here. But her husband didn’t honor that. It’s really very sad.”

Singing her praises

But for Bonnie, Nordica, who is actually buried in an unmarked grave in New Jersey, is home in spirit. It’s that spirit that moves the new caretakers to get up each day and teach homestead visitors about the diva.

Nordica Days will be another chance to do that. “This is Farmington’s way of memorializing her,” Bonnie said. “She and Chester Greenwood (inventor of the earmuff) are the town’s claim to fame, literally.”

The homestead offers something for everyone, Bonnie said. “This is just a little Maine farmhouse that holds a treasure,” she said, citing gowns of the finest couture that Nordica actually wore, china custom made for the diva’s table by Tiffany’s and much of the furniture, some of it gifted to Nordica by royalty, she used.

“She had the most exquisite things,” Bonnie gushed, sweeping her eyes across a room sparking with gowns. “Just wicked wonderful stuff.” And then with a laugh, “I get to dust it every day. I love it. I love it everyday. I feel like I know the woman after being here all this time.”

In addition to her singing, the graceful Nordica is remembered in a proclamation by the state and signed by a former Maine governor for fighting for women’s rights and wildlife conservation and creating a bond of goodwill between Europe and America. She also was used as the spokeswoman for a variety of products from Coca-Cola to bikes and even her own line of fragrances, cosmetics and weight-reducing bath salts.

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