DIXFIELD — Generosity and the love of angels was evident late Tuesday morning inside The Front Porch Cafe at 5 Hall Hill Road.

So, too, were the mouthwatering aromas of home-cooked, cider-braised roast pork loin, mashed potatoes, gravy, squash, green beans and rolls.

Seated in wheelchairs and chairs around tables were a dozen residents from Edgewood Manor, Sandy River and Orchard Park nursing homes and six staff members.

Cafe owners Sammie Angel, a longtime musician and vocalist, and her chef husband, Clint Bailey, treated them to the meal, which was accompanied by hot chocolate, homemade tapioca pudding and custard pie.

Angel, who performs in nursing homes from Farmington to Lewiston every month, also played a few sing-along songs on her guitar, finishing with an a cappella-style gospel tune.

“It’s a way I can give back, so being able to do this for them is just the best thing,” Angel said. “I am just so thrilled that I can do this, because I love those guys so much.”

The event was the second of three Retired Elderly Angel Luncheons, all of which have been paid for by two anonymous “angels.”

“These ‘angels’ are awesome, awesome people and they do not want to be named,” Angel said.

When she rattled off the menu, one resident quickly said, “Bring it on!”

“I’m going to get my guitar,” Angel said, to which resident Susie Carlton of Edgewood replied, “Love it!”

Since opening the cozy diner inside an old house nearly four years ago, Angel, 52, said she always wanted to provide a free Thanksgiving dinner “for people who need it.”

However, the local Congregational Church soon began providing those meals for free. So one day, while talking with a man and his wife — the anonymous angels — the REAL idea blossomed.

“I said the neediest people are those in my nursing homes, because they’re usually at the end of life and a lot of them don’t have anyone to come and see them, or have any way to do anything with any kind of social structure, except to play bingo at the nursing homes,” Angel said.

That’s when the man said he would like to do it and would pay for all of the meals, which cost $15 each, tax included.

Seventeen residents came to the debut on Feb. 15, including one woman who was 101. The third REAL meal is tentatively set for March 29 with residents from Victorian Villa in Canton and the Rumford Community Home.

Activity directors at the nursing homes select the residents to take.

“I want it to be ones who will remember,” Angel said.

“It’s not that I am against Alzheimer’s, but I want them to be able to remember it,” she said. “We really make them feel special, give them a full pork dinner, all the trimmings and dessert, and I play a couple of songs for them on the guitar.”

When performing in nursing homes, she said residents see her only with her keyboard, which provides the full-band sound.

“That’s what I’ve done my whole life, is be an entertainer, until I came home and opened a restaurant, which is a great success, but one of these days we’ll get to take a salary,” said the 1976 graduate of Mount Blue High School in Farmington.

“We opened at exactly the wrong time we could possibly open and the fact that we’re still open, it’s all in God’s hands,” she said. “It’s amazing that we could stay open three years and nine months now in the hardest economy we’ve had in decades.”

A professional entertainer of 41 years from Maine to Florida, Angel, who was born and raised in Wilton, has performed in nursing homes for 30 years in Florida and 18 years in Maine, in addition to her nighttime gigs.

Summering in Maine one year for six weeks to “get my sanity back,” Angel said she became “horrendously homesick.”

So the couple moved to Dixfield after she decided to buy an old house with a barn and renovate it into a restaurant.

At the first REAL meal, Angel said, she “just stood here beaming the whole time, because we were able to do this.”

On Tuesday, she told all to sing along, then launched into “Que Sera Sera,” and so, too, did several residents.

When waitress Jocelyn Wheeler brought out the rolls, Angel performed one of her hits, “Half Past Boston.”

The patrons were appreciative of the music, and the meal.

“I liked everything,” said Merlin White, 85, a former woodsman, machinist and carpenter from Kingfield.

“Super; super,” is how Claire Meuse of Farmington described it. “This is quite a generous thing to do.”

“It was extra good, but too much,” said Jeannette Pomerleau of Edgewood Manor. “At 101, you get to be fussy, but I liked everything and asked to come back.”

tkarkos@sunjournal.com