It is with a heavy heart that I note the recent passing of Dean Shea, an old Wiscasset friend and neighbor. I will miss his charm, wit, storytelling, and sound advice. Dean was a great help to me as I researched and wrote my three books on Wiscasset history and folklore. He shared with me many colorful memories of my childhood here in Maine’s prettiest village in the 1940s, ’50s, and ’60s.
It was Dean who first told me about the legendary Wiscasset Athletic Club and its baseball team called the “AC,” which became a great story. Dean and his younger brother Chuck Shea both played on the team as teenagers. It’s hard to believe, but my interview with Dean on the subject took place 10 years ago. It was over a fine breakfast of bacon, eggs and home fries washed down with strong black coffee at the Alna General Store. Roy Barnes, Wiscasset’s former road commissioner and city councilman, joined us that morning. Dean began by telling me that the AC’s baseball stadium was in town next to the elementary school on Federal Street. I was surprised to hear that there used to be a small green-painted wooden grandstand behind home plate. Fans of all ages would gather there to watch the games, buy hot dogs and drink a Coca-Cola. The AC did not have what you would call a regular schedule, or so Dean told me. Instead, the team played impromptu games against teams from Bath, Woolwich, Westport, Boothbay, Waldoboro and Richmond.
“If you wanted to play another team from town, all you had to do was call them… On Sunday afternoons, everyone would meet down at the ballpark. We’d find someone brave enough to umpire and play until it got too dark.” Dean said the Wiscasset Athletic Club had been around since he was a kid and even many years before that. He put me in touch with Walter Sherman and other older Wiscasset residents who could tell me more.
Dean and his brother Chuck were standout athletes at Wiscasset High School in the 1950s. Dean excelled in four sports: cross country, track, baseball and basketball. Both also had respectable athletic careers at rival colleges in Maine. Chuck attended nearby Bowdoin College in Brunswick, while Dean attended Colby College in Waterville. You’ve got to love two young men from Wiscasset, one a Bowdoin Polar Bear, the other a Colby Mule.
One summer day a few years ago, Dean came to my house with a shoebox filled with dozens of pocket diaries dating from 1880 to 1933. He told me they had been kept by Charles E. Knight of Wiscasset. “Have you ever heard of him?” he asked. I said no. “Well…he was a pretty great guy. I think you should read the books and see for yourself.” Dean said he had inherited the books from his older brother Roy, who had bought them for a dollar at an auction in Fairfield. Excerpts from the diaries became a chapter in my first book, detailing the life and times of Charles E. Knight—Bowdoin University graduate, lawyer, justice of the peace, grocer, town band musician, church elder, and, at age 86, Wiscasset town councilman. Another great story thanks to Dean.
While researching my second book of Wiscasset stories, Dean accompanied me on a hike up Cushman Mountain, part of the Cushman Preserve owned by the Chewonki Foundation. It was a warm spring day and sunny too as we set out on the old Indian trail. Our goal was to look for traces of a wooden observation tower that had once stood high on the summit overlooking the Back River. An earlier Wiscasset resident, Erastus Foote Jr., had had the tower built in the 1890s or early 1900s for no other reason than to enjoy the view. After circling the summit, we found four rather large, crumbling cement blocks that had served as the tower’s foundation. I photographed Dean, with a stick in each hand and his arms outstretched to show how wide the tower had been at its base. The following winter, Dean was kind enough to proofread an advance copy of my book, which included his picture at the site of Foote’s Tower. Dean, a trained English teacher, saved me endless embarrassment by spotting a number of grammatical errors before the book’s publication.
Until a few years ago, Dean was very active in hunting, fishing, hiking, and cross-country skiing. For a few years, he and Chuck were part-time school bus drivers for the Wiscasset School Department, driving the teams to away games. Dean also served several terms as a trustee of our Wiscasset Water District.
Judy Flanagan told me that the family planned to scatter some of her brother’s ashes on the summit of Langdon Mountain behind his home on Gardiner Road, as well as on Mt. Katahdin. My deepest condolences go out to Dean’s wife, Sandra, and their three children, Laura, Paula, and Denny, as well as to Judy and her husband, Tim Flanagan, Chuck and Faye Shea, and also to Harry Shea and his wife, Yang, who live in Missouri, and all the others who make up Dean’s family.
Dean was very proud of his Irish roots and a few years ago he fulfilled a long-held dream when he and Sandra travelled across the ocean to visit the Emerald Isle for their 50th wedding anniversary. So it’s fitting to end with an old Irish toast: “Those we love do not go away. They are with us every day, unseen, unheard, but always close to us. Still loved, still missed and very dear to us.”
Phil DiVece holds a BA in journalism from Colorado State University and an MA in journalism from the University of South Florida. He is the author of three Wiscasset books and is a regular contributor to the Boothbay Register-Wiscasset newspaper. He lives in Wiscasset. You can reach him at [email protected]
