Memorial planned for shoe executive Bass

BRUNSWICK – A memorial service will be held March 17 in Wilton for George Henry Bass II, who led the shoe company founded by his grandfather through some of its most prosperous years.

G.H. Bass II served as president, chairman of the board and chairman of the executive committee of G.H. Bass & Co., which started as a shoe shop in Wilton in 1876. He was 87 when he died Feb. 24 in Naples, Fla.

The memorial service will be held at the First Congregational Church in the town where Bass shoes were manufactured for decades.

Bass was remembered for seemingly knowing the names of all 1,500 people who worked in his factory in Wilton. He lamented that the company was later sold and production was moved overseas in 1998.

For all his renown, he was humble.

“He didn’t have an overpowering presence,” his granddaughter Alane Bass O’Connor said Sunday. “He’d introduce himself, ‘Hi. I’m George.”‘

Bass entered the family business after graduating from Bowdoin College. By the time Bass became president of the company in 1956, Charles Lindbergh had flown across the Atlantic in Bass boots, and Richard Byrd had gone in search of the South Pole in Bass boots.

But the best was yet to come. Under his leadership, the Bass Weejun loafer became the footwear of choice for students in the 1960s. James Dean helped with his famous look: T-shirt, rolled-up jeans, Bass Weejuns.

In 1968, Bass became chairman of the board, and he was named chairman of the Bass executive committee in 1972.

Upon his retirement, the company was sold to Chesebrough-Ponds and then to Phillips-Van Heusen Corp., which moved the factory overseas in 1998. The company’s administrative offices are still in Maine.

Although he was sad to see the Wilton plant closed, Bass was known as a happy man whose jokes often had people in stitches.

He enjoyed sitting on the front porch of his cottage in Boothbay Harbor. He also enjoyed the Boston Red Sox and Atlanta Braves, which he had always liked in the days when they were the Boston Braves.

One of his other passions was horses. After he retired, he worked with horses at the Flying Changes Center for Therapeutic Riding in Topsham.

Through it all, he was humming a song.

“He always had a big smile on his face,” his granddaughter said. “He was just having so much fun, we sort of all thought it would go on forever.”

He is survived by his wife of 63 years, Catherine Forbush Bass of Brunswick; two daughters, Nancy Bass Wolfram and her husband, Chuck, of Ithaca, N.Y., and Joanne Bass O’Connor and her husband, Richard, of Wayne; four grandchildren; and four great-grandchildren.

The Rev. Dr. Peter Misner will officiate during the memorial service at 1 p.m. A private family burial will be held in the spring at the Lake View Cemetery in Wilton.