Willem Lange

Willem Lange (born 1935) is an American author, newspaper columnist, and television presenter.

Willem Lange was born in Albany, New York, in 1935.^[1] He became fluent in sign language at an early age; his parents were deaf. In 1950, he began to attend a prep school in New England in lieu of attending a reformatory in his home state of New York.^[2][3]

In 1962, Lange earned a BA after nine years from the College of Wooster. During the nine years it took for him to graduate, Lange worked a number of jobs, including as a construction worker, announcer for bobsled races, factory worker, taxi driver, bartender, and cowboy, among other jobs.^[2]

Following his graduation, Lange settled in northern New York State and became a high school English teacher. During his summers upstate, he served as an Outward Bound USA instructor.^[2]

From 1968 to 1972, Lange was the director of the Dartmouth Outward Bound Center. Thereafter, he spent thirty-five years working as a general contractor in Hanover, New Hampshire.^[2]

In 1981, Lange created A Yankee Notebook, a syndicated newspaper column that he writes that is published across New England. He has also worked as a commentator for Vermont Public Radio and has served 18 seasons as host of Windows to the Wild, an outdoor recreation television program aired on New Hampshire Public Television.^[4][2][5]

Since 1975, Lange has read A Christmas Carol to a television audience during Christmastime.^[6][7] He uses the original prompter script used by Charles Dickens for a 1867–68 tour of the United States.^[6]

Lange had first heard the version in 1953 while at college, where the version was traditionally performed in the college's chapel prior to students going home for Christmas break.^[6] Lange began performing it in his home, eventually moving to St. Thomas Church in Hanover, New Hampshire, when audiences outgrew the space.^[6]

Every Christmas Eve since 1994, public radio stations in Vermont air Lange’s Favor Johnson: A Christmas Story.^[8][9]

Favor Johnson is a Vermont farmer who lives by himself with his dog Hercules and farm animals. One Christmas Eve, his dog’s life is saved by his physician new neighbor, who brings Johnson a fruitcake the next morning when he comes to check on his patient. This inspires Johnson to start a tradition of delivering homemade fruitcakes house-to-house to his neighbors each Christmas Eve.^{[8][9][10][11]} Lange told Vermont Public Radio that Favor Johnson was based on a true series of events when a neighbor's dog was accidentally shot by rabbit hunters on Christmas Eve and another neighbor, a physician, saved the dog's life, and the dog's owner, who had been an army cook, started baking fruitcakes for his neighbors.^[12]

The story was published as a picture book in 2009 by Bunker Hill Publishing with illustrations by Bert Dodson.^[11]

For Lange's work on Windows to the Wild, he won a Boston/New England Emmy award for "Outstanding Program Host".^[4]

In 2021, Franklin Pierce University awarded Lange with the Fitzwater Medallion for Leadership in Public Communication.^[13]

In 1959, Lange married his wife Ida. Together they had three children.^[2] Ida died in 2018.^[14] He lives in East Montpelier, Vermont.^[15]

• Words from the Wild (Bauhan Publishing, 2015)
• The White-Footed Mouse (Bunker Hill Publishing, 2012)^[16]
• A Dream of Dragons (Bunker Hill Publishing, 2011)
• Favor Johnson: A Christmas Story (Bunker Hill Publishing, 2009)
• Intermittent Bliss: Reflections on a Long Love Affair (University Press of New England, 2003)^[17]
• John and Tom (Vermont Folklife Center, 2001)
• Okay, Let's Try It Again (University Press of New England, 1999)
• Tales from the Edge of the Woods (University Press of New England, 1998)

Official website