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- Portland Press Herald (ME)
October 4, 1997
Paul Edwin Bennett Sr., an author, sailor, salesman, town councilor and family man, died Friday after a brief illness. He was 88.
Mr. Bennett loved the sea.
During World War II, he worked in the South Portland shipyard building Liberty Ships.
''He wanted to operate a crane,'' his son, William S. Bennett, Sr., said. ''And they said, 'Did you graduate from grammar school?' Yes. 'High school?' Yes. 'College?' Yes. 'Well, you aren't going to drive a crane, you're going to be lead man here, moving steel around.''
He was proud of the warships he built, but he had a special connection to pleasure crafts, particularly his beloved St. Pierre Dory, the ''Emme,'' named for his wife.
Mr. Bennett and his wife, Emma Tomlinson Bennett, traveled aboard the steam ship City of Camden as part of their honeymoon, during the last year of the Boston to Bangor route. Every year after that, they managed to be at sea on their anniversary, Aug. 1.
''For the most part, the last 30 years, they went on the Emme,'' the younger Mr. Bennett said. ''Before that, it varied, but they'd always be out on a boat. One year they went out on a row boat, just to be on the water.''
In fact, in 1984, Mr. Bennett told Bill Caldwell, the Press Herald columnist, that during his honeymoon, ''we made a promise we'd spend every wedding anniversary in a boat at sea along the coast of Maine. And we've done it.''
Being on the sea as long as he was, he got to know people. Over the years, he wrote four books - ''The Sardine Carrier Royal,'' ''Sardine Carriers & Seiners of the Maine Coast,'' ''Downeast to Washington County, Maine'' and Twenty-Seven Years Coasting the Maine in the Emme.''
He was working on a fifth, about Maine springs, when he died.
Mr. Bennett wrote on a word processor, using the program WordPerfect, his son said. ''He wasn't intimidated by computers.''
Mr. Bennett was a storyteller who immediately made people at ease and ingratiated himself.
That skill made him the top salesman for Koppers Co., where he sold road tar to municipalities throughout Maine and the Maritime provinces of Canada.
Although his work put him on the road, he kept in close touch with his family.
''As a young boy I was quite interested in bicycles,'' his son said. ''I'd give him tasks. I'd say, 'Dad, you've got to get me an inner tube this week,' and all week long I'd wait for him to get home, and he'd always come home with whatever I'd ask for.''
He did that for all four of his children.
Mr. Bennett also was quite a woodworker - he built a 25-foot sailboat, which he used to sail around Boston Harbor. And he built cedar chests and bureaus. ''He built a crib for me when I was a young fellow, and a high chair,'' his son said.
He also built what he called Bennett Boards - oak cutting boards that also were used under hot dishes.
''Everybody up the coast of Maine practically has a Bennett Board,'' his son said.
Mr. Bennett was born in Auburn, son of Silas Alvarus and Maude Mitchell Bennett. He graduated from the University of Maine in 1931 with a degree in forestry, and worked for Great Northern Paper Co.
He was a 50-year member and past master of Freeport Masonic Lodge, a member of the South Freeport Church, served as a Freeport selectman and school board member and on the board of directors of the South Freeport Water Co. He also belong to the Maine Antique Power Association.
Surviving are his wife of 66 years, Emma T. Bennett of South Freeport; two sons, William Bennett Sr. and Paul E. Jr. of Freeport; and two daughters, Sara A. Marston of Yarmouth and Mary Ellen Britton of Parma, Idaho; 10 grandchildren and seven great grandchildren.
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1909 - 1997 (88 years)
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