I wanted to be near the water, not the Cape. So I started going west along the shoreline. I kept doing that until I came down Route 88 and crossed the bridge, and looked across back at Westport Point, and said ‘Wow!’”

David Cole, on discovering Westport

What I’ve learned from Westport out of all of this is that it is a community full of people who have all kinds of different interests and qualifications, and if you tell them they’re really qualified to be on the board of health, say, they’ll say ‘What? But they realize they can do it. We’re not afraid to say to somebody, ‘You really could benefit the town, and you’ll love it.’ And so many, so many times, it’s worked.”

— Betty Slade, on getting involved

They have lived everywhere and done just about everything. But Betty Slade and David Cole, who will leave Westport next month for their new home in Austin, Texas, never really knew they’d found a home until after they moved here full time in 2002.

Twenty-four years later, the mark they’ve left can be found in uncountable places around town — from Osprey platforms on the Westport River to quiet historic cemeteries reclaimed from nature and neglect. From dozens of Community Preservation Committee projects from the north end to the point, to the hearts of the many people they encouraged over the years to get involved, take an interest, work for the better good and as Betty said Friday, “do what you can do.”

So there was nothing left to do Sunday but say, “thank you.”

Hundreds of friends and colleagues came out to the Keith Farm on Horseneck Road to say goodbye in a celebration organized by friends Gay Gillespie and Donna Amaral. They gathered under a huge tent, ate chowder, reminisced about the old days and passed hugs around liberally.

“I’m going to be crying all day,” Slade said on Friday.

A few days before the going away party, Slade, 87, and Cole, 98, sat down to talk about Westport, community, activism and making small differences that leave big marks. They had a lot on their plate, including Betty’s last osprey sighting tour on the river with friends, but talked and laughed for an hour.

First off, how did you end up in Westport?

David: “When you’re in heaven, why move? I was teaching at Harvard (economics) and I had a secretary whose mother lived in Marion. So I tried going up the shore of Massachusetts Bay looking for a place. I wanted to be near the water, not the Cape. So I started going west along the shoreline. I kept doing that until I came down Route 88 and crossed the bridge, and looked across back at Westport Point, and said ‘Wow!’ Then Betty came along and she was impressed.”

How long had you been married at the time?

Betty: “1989. But we met Sept. 20, 1961 at 5 p.m. in Nashville. I wanted to be a diplomat and I had a scholarship to work on my PhD. I was a Latin American scholar but then I changed to Eastern Africa. David had brought a man from the planning office in Uganda to give a talk at Vanderbilt. I wanted to get to that meeting and I walked in and there he was, standing with my first husband. I met them both at exactly the same moment.”

David, gesturing left and right with his pointer finger: “Eenie, meenie, miney, mo. I was taken!”

Betty: We reconnected in Washington later and then in London.

David: “I was looking for someone to fill a position on a project I was running in Indonesia. She seemed qualified, and (later) she was having such a good time I decided to leave Cambridge and go to Jakarta. And we were married three years later.”

In your many years before Westport, where have you hung your hat?

Betty: Turkey, Indonesia, England for seven years, Washington, D.C., Texas, Korea, Lexington (Mass.). (Living or traveling in) the Philippines, Africa, Sudan, Antarctica … we’ve traveled a lot! We were divers, birders … we did a little bit of everything.”

You are known as being involved in almost everything in Westport: Historic preservation, historic cemeteries, environmentalism and the Westport River Watershed Alliance, community improvement with the Community Preservation Committee, the point, Paul Cuffe, Westport planning, the list goes on. What spurred you to be so active here?

David: “I was very much interested in the river and the watershed alliance. After we moved here I became a board member at the alliance. By 2004 I was elected president and served five years. So that kind of started us off in getting involved in local community stuff. But Betty just took off and got involved in everything — I call her the Vicar of Westport Point, actually for the whole community!”

Betty: “I respond to needs. When I see something I think ‘How can I help?’ It started off with our house which was built in 1776. And so I got interested in the history of the house. And when I did that, I got interested in everybody’s houses. So we ended up doing the history of all the houses around here. The history of the place really fascinated me.”

From there?

Betty: “I could see there were problems. The historic district was not being adequately protected as it should be, so we got involved in that.”

And then the work you started to fight for more protection of historic cemeteries, as well as reclaim them from nature and repair gravestones?

Betty: “In 2004 ELJ (a Bristol, R.I. contractor) took the stones from a cemetery and brought them to a crusher; a neighbor saw them and called. We started advocating (for better protections) and the town supported us. So I said, ‘I want to protect these cemeteries!’ and went to the board of selectmen and said, ‘Is it OK if I try to register them?’ I thought there would be a few, and there turned out to be 116.”

What have you done since on that front?

Betty: “We said, we should (start repairing) the old ones that are broken, and have people trained under a CPC project. So far there’s been 1,100 stones, at least, repaired, and thousands and thousands cleaned. Ted Kinnari contributes the cleaning solution — it really works! And now we have a website for the town. It’s getting better, where people can find information on what stones are where.”

What are the difficulties of getting things done in a place like Westport? How do you do it?

David: “One way to win the hearts and minds of your community is to give away a lot of money for community projects. So through her leadership at the CPC, she’s reached out to hundreds of people in the community, one way or another, to help them support projects that they want to see happen. The CPC is a wonderful way to bring community and town together; it’s been remarkable.”

What have you learned through all your battles and efforts here? Surely you met resistance along the way.

Betty: “What I’ve learned from Westport out of all of this is that it is a community full of people who have all kinds of different interests and qualifications, and if you tell them they’re really qualified to be on the board of health, say, they’ll say ‘What?’ But they realize they can do it. We’re not afraid to say to somebody, ‘You really could benefit the town, and you’ll love it.’ And so many, so many times, it’s worked.”

David: “One of the important things is we’ve drawn in people who have positive attitudes and were seeing problems and wanted to solve them.”

Betty: “Some people set out to create problems and prevent change from happening. But I think having lived here and having identified problems, we’ve tried to find people who could help solve them. And I think that’s meant we’ve been lucky to make a real contribution.”

How does it feel to build bridges with people who might be on opposite sides of the aisle?

Betty: “What I’ve found is that the projects that I’ve been involved in have been supported by everyone, like the cemeteries. I had a guy who hated my guts but one day at town hall he saw me, came up and hugged me. He said, ‘We may be absolutely politically opposed, but what you’re doing with the cemeteries I absolutely loved!’ Because it was his family.”

Why are you leaving?

Betty: “We wanted to die here, but we’ve lived an awful long time and haven’t died yet (laughs). It’s harder now, and we realize how hard it is on the kids when you leave” from a visit. “David has four sons, two in Lexington, and we’re going to miss them terribly. But they’ll visit. I have a son in Austin. And we have friends from Westport who moved to Austin.”

What will you miss about Westport?

Betty: “I’m looking out the window right now, the river’s right there. Every morning I look out and say … (breaks up) … I’m going to miss it. The sky, the water. David’s a sailor …”

David: “Now I can’t go out any more. I miss it and watch wistfully as the boats go out. It’s beautiful.”

How has saying goodbye been so far?

Betty: “People are coming by the house and knocking on the door! It’s very touching. What’s touching is that these are people who say I reached out to them; I never thought of it that way. But we do tend to do that, reach out. It’s been good to see so many people. And they’re writing letters: ‘I couldn’t have done it without you,’ or ‘You encouraged me when I really wanted to do this but I was afraid.’”

What about Sunday’s celebration?

Betty: “When Gay and Donna suggested it they said, ‘Make out a list,’ and it ended up being 375 people. I’m so thrilled to be able to say goodbye to each one of them. It’s really our community coming together. I know I’m going to be tearing up.”

David: “Betty has more connections; I won’t know half the people there or remember the names of 80 percent of the other people I do remember! But I see this as a time to come, meet your friends and have a good time. We’re celebrating Westport. To me it’s an opportunity to thank them for all they’ve done.”