Beloved Orono resident Frances Hartgen dies

ORONO – Frances Hartgen was known around town as the wife of Vincent Hartgen, the larger-than-life impresario who founded the University of Maine’s art department. She didn’t mind. He was the love of her life, and friends say the couple were like newlyweds, even in their 80s.

But to those who knew Frances well, she was a legend in her own right. She was a role model to women – an educated educator with a mind as sharp as a shard of glass. To many in town, she was known as a teacher. To students at UMaine, she was their librarian. In April, when she published her memoir, she gained acclaim as an author. To all, she was a friend.

On Saturday, the community lost that friend to a long illness. Frances Hartgen was 93, and she passed away with family by her side at Dirigo Pines, where she had lived since 2004.

“Her legacy is the inspiration to other people, particularly women,” her son Stephen said Monday. “She mentored dozens and dozens of women, who saw her as a role model. She had basically bootstrapped her way from a very modest background to earn a bachelor’s degree, then a master’s degree. She was involved in the arts. Her life says, ‘You can do this, no matter what your circumstances.'”

She was born Frances Caroline Lubanda in 1913 in Reading, Pa., and met Vincent as a child.

“I first saw him in junior high school, and I never forgot him,” she said during an interview this spring. “Apparently he did see me, too.”

On Monday, her twin sons, David and Stephen, recounted their parents’ love story. Vincent Hartgen predeceased his wife in 2002.

“They were looking for a shared vision, someone they could share their lives with, and that’s how they found each other,” David Hartgen recalled.

She went on to Syracuse University in New York, where she studied education. The couple married while Vincent was still in graduate school, and though her parents questioned the decision – “He’s still in school – how are you going to make it?” – she answered with her trademark can-do attitude: “I have a job. I’m a teacher.”

During World War II, the couple moved to Baltimore, Md., where Stephen and David were born in 1944. Two years later, Vincent accepted an offer to start a one-man art department at the University of Maine, and the Orono chapter of their story began.

The family moved into the long-gone South Apartments on campus, and Frances took her first trip into town several weeks later, towing the twins in a red wagon. She had moved from the city, and this small town with a movie theater, a drugstore and a men’s clothing store didn’t appeal to her urban sensibilities.

“I later grew to be very fond of Orono and accept it as it was – we both did,” Frances said during an interview earlier this year. “It was home, and it is home.”

In the 1960s, the couple commissioned an architect to build a modern home in contrast with Orono’s more traditional farmhouses and Colonials. Until recently, it was painted a brilliant daffodil yellow – Frances’ favorite color.

The home, like Frances herself, became a landmark in town. And as Frances warmed to her adopted hometown, the community embraced her, in turn. Roberta Bradson, who owns The Store Ampersand, recalled Frances’ weekly visits for coffee and a lemon danish.

“She was always so friendly and so sweet to everybody,” Bradson said. “She wanted us to do well and our business to do well.”

Thinking about others was second nature to Frances. Though she was legally blind, she knitted hundreds of hats and sold them for $3 apiece to raise money for the Orono Health Association.

Her recent foray into writing reflects her love for sharing stories. While working as the special collections director at UMaine’s Fogler Library, a job from which she retired in 1982, she encouraged Mainers to send their love letters from World War II. She figured those letters were as important as any other historical documents in the collection.

“Mom was a lover of love,” Stephen said.

“She was an incurable romantic,” David added.

When people remember Frances, they will remember her love – for Vincent, for her family and for life.

“She was always looking forward,” David said. “Every day was a blessing.”

A memorial service will be held at 1 p.m. Friday at St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Orono. A public reception will follow at the Inn at Dirigo Pines.