ALLENTOWN, Pa. – Lehigh County is mourning the loss of a local legend.<\/p>\n
Dan Wuchter, Sr. owned the Allentown Fairgrounds Farmers Market and passed away last week after a battle with dementia.<\/p>\n
His wife and friends spoke with 69 News about Dan’s life’s work, and the future of the farmer\u2019s market.<\/p>\n
If the Allentown Fairground Farmers Market is the stomach of Lehigh County, Dan Wuchter was its heart.<\/p>\n
“I love the market. I love being here. As so many of the merchants do. I just absolutely love it,” Don Wuchter, Sr. once said in an interview at the farmer\u2019s market.<\/p>\n
That love sustained the farmer\u2019s market for the better part of 8 decades. And Dan Wuchter was in the trenches. He opened Dan’s Bar-B-Que in the mid-1950’s.<\/p>\n
Laurie Wuchter was Dan’s wife and partner for 34 years.<\/p>\n
“You know, he took my breath away the first time I saw him,” said Laurie. \u201cI’ve been with him seven days a week since I met him pretty much. 7 days a week. We had to check in (on the Farmers Market) even on Christmas and the holidays, because you never know, there might be a leak. But this (market) was his passion. This was his gem.”<\/p>\n
Dan Wuchter became the sole owner of the Farmer’s Market in 1995, preserving the historic and important piece of Allentown history. His loss is immense.<\/p>\n
“He’s part of the community or he was the community. And people came just for him many times,” Laurie said.<\/p>\n
Bill Walsh, owner of Mr. Bill’s Poultry, had been friends with Wuchter since 1968.<\/p>\n
“It was ultra-personal. If you did something against the market, you did something against Dan,” Walsh said.<\/p>\n
Dan’s wife Laurie and Dan’s son Jr. say they’ll continue to work to make sure the farmer\u2019s market is a success.<\/p>\n
Dan was 86 years old. His funeral is set for Tuesday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ALLENTOWN, Pa. – Lehigh County is mourning the loss of a local legend. Dan Wuchter, Sr. owned the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":152838,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[69474,153,155,154,524,46982,69473,23509,16303,18647,433,69475,2252],"class_list":{"0":"post-152837","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-bethlehem","8":"tag-allentown-farmers-market","9":"tag-bethlehem","10":"tag-bethlehem-headlines","11":"tag-bethlehem-news","12":"tag-community","13":"tag-dan","14":"tag-dan-wuchter","15":"tag-dementia","16":"tag-family-business","17":"tag-funeral","18":"tag-lehigh-county","19":"tag-local-legend","20":"tag-obituary"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152837","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=152837"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152837\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/152838"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=152837"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=152837"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=152837"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}