PORT CLYDE – The names of the commercial fishermen and lobstermen from St. George who died at sea are not likely to be forgotten as long as there’s a community to remember them.
Saturday was a festive day at Port Clyde, a fishing village in the town of St. George, with the celebration of the fourth annual Rock the Dock party at Jim Barstow’s Monhegan Boat Dock.
Started in 2005 to raise funds for the St. George Fishermen Memorial at Marshall’s Point a half-mile from the boat dock, Rock the Dock has become an annual celebration. This year’s party honored Eugene L. Bracy, who died at sea in 1977.
The idea for the memorial started in 2005 with the death of local fisherman Gary Thorbjornson, whose family looked into the possibility of having a memorial for all local commercial fishermen. The place chosen for the stone was at Marshall’s Point next to the lighthouse. The community raised enough money for the memorial, which bears the names of 11 lobstermen and fishermen. A 5-foot-high polished, black-granite tablet, it was dedicated this past Memorial Day.
“On that memorial at Marshall’s Point is Marsha’s [late] husband, Gene, and the father of these girls here,” said Doug Anderson Jr., a lobsterman and lay minister at Port Clyde Advent Christian Church.
Anderson administered the wreath-throwing service in honor of Bracy. Bracy’s widow, Marsha Rome, cast the wreath into the Gulf of Maine. With her were two of her daughters, Pam Randall and Paula Banta. A third daughter, Julia Largy, did not attend the ceremony.
“Gene was a good friend of mine. We fished together a lot of times as well as the many others whose names are on that memorial,” Anderson said.
“So I’m going to offer a prayer, and Marsha is going to cast the wreath,” he said.
Anderson said a prayer of thanks for the opportunity for everyone to gather at the dock for the ceremony and asked for a blessing on the community and the fleet, for the bounty from the sea and for the safety of each fisherman.
Local resident Kelli Haines, who knows Marsha Rome and her current husband, Scott Rome, called Marsha the “salt of the earth” whose family in town goes back 200 years.
“She’s a fixture in the community,” Haines said of Marsha, who works year-round at Port Clyde General Store.
Funds from the party will be used for landscaping and perpetual care of the memorial, St. George fuel assistance through the Ocean View Grange, and the St. George ambulance service.
Resident Donna Dearborn made the floral wreath.
Estimates indicate that more than 1,000 attended the party, which went on into the evening. Two bands, The Maine Rockits and the Country Choir, played rock ‘n’ roll, bluegrass and country music.
Comments
comments for this post are closed