Booster’s death leaves void in Pittsfield

I’m not sure which detail interested me most in the brief news item about an 88-year-old man named Everett Connors who died of a heart attack in his car in Pittsfield Sunday morning.

The part about Connors being Pittsfield’s biggest booster and its self-appointed image keeper was enough to make me want to know a bit more about him. How does one go about boosting the reputation of a quiet, rural little Maine town among outsiders who might never even have thought to pass through it?

Then there was the fact that until Connors retired from the Town Council three years ago, at 85, he was believed to be the oldest elected official in the state. He missed only one meeting during his three terms, in fact, and that was because he had to have cancer surgery. For endurance alone, it was a laudable distinction.

But what really caught my eye was the part about the dustpan. It seems that Connors always carried one in the back of his station wagon, along with a broom and a bucket, so he could roll to a stop to clean up the trash, broken glass or other unsightly matter that happened to be tarnishing the town’s image at the moment. That, it seemed to me, was civic pride lifted to an intriguing new level.

“It’s true,” said Town Manager D. Dwight Dogherty, who described Connors as a small, white-haired, funny and outspoken man who was born on St. Patrick’s Day and — wouldn’t you know it? — looked just like a leprechaun. “Everett was always coming into the town office to ask what was going on — he was involved in everything and knew just about everybody — and you’d see him out there sweeping up rubbish around the library or wherever. He was incredibly proud of his town, and always wore a `I Love Pittsfield’ button.”

Yvonne Young, a former mayor who served for five years on the Town Council with Connors, said his tireless boosterism was a refreshing contrast to the civic apathy that plagues so many communities.

“You’d be at a Maine Municipal Association workshop with Everett, and he’d be going from table to table saying `Hello, I’m from beautiful Pittsfield’ to anyone he met,” Young recalled with a laugh. “He was always willing to serve on the Town Council or the Egg Festival board, you name it, whereas nowadays it’s hard to find someone to run for the school board or to get more than 10 people at a special town meeting.”

Young said she’s not certain about the source of Connors’ civic zeal, but figures it was simply part of an old-school training learned in his youth.

“Everett’s personal philosophy of being a gentleman meant being a man of his word and of giving something back to the community,” she said. “He wanted to make a difference in people’s lives, and he made it his business to go around town and feel its pulse.”

Connors was born in Winter Harbor in 1911, one of 11 children. His father, who drove a horse-powered lawn mower at the Grindstone Neck Resort, kept the family moving from one farm to another — in Winter Harbor, Sorrento, Canaan and eventually Palmyra. Connors was 19 when he met Marguerite Gifford, who would become his wife of 50 years. To support the couple’s five children, Connors peddled milk door-to-door in Pittsfield before working in the local textile mills.

When he retired from Eastland Woolen Mill in 1971, Connors was freed to commit the rest of his days to the service of the residents of his adopted Pittsfield. After years of working on farms and punching clocks, he’d found his true calling. Aside from his stint in local politics, where he became famous — and infamous — for speaking bluntly on just about everything, Connors devoted himself to the welfare of the elderly.

He housed several elderly women over the years, feeding them, driving them to the doctor’s, and running errands for them until they had to be moved into nursing homes. Five years ago, Connors observed national “Make a Difference Day” by renting a limousine and escorting a half-dozen elderly shut-ins on a grand tour of his favorite town.

And he made his rounds daily, his head on a swivel as he inspected roads and buildings for signs of wear. He swept up messes along Main Street, visited housebound friends and sick pals in the hospital, attended funerals, did church work, circulated petitions, and generally kept tabs on the town as any self-respecting image-keeper should.

“I’m not sprouting any wings,” he told an interviewer three years ago. “I just make myself available.”

Having known Connors for nearly 30 years, Jasper Wyman would call his old friend’s self-assessment hugely understated — and entirely typical.

“I believe he truly was an inspiration to many people, just seeing him out and about every day,” said Wyman, who lives on a farm in Pittsfield. “I’m 74, and to be perfectly honest I could never have done all Everett did in his 80s. He overflowed with energy and had an indomitable spirit. He did so many things for this town that it made you kind of wonder sometimes. But it’s just the way he was, I guess. One of a kind. And I can tell you, Everett’s really going to be missed around here.”