 His legacy |
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Obituary...the long version
- Richard Whitten Billings, died peacefully at home on November 15th, in Montville, Maine. Mr. Billings was born January 5th, 1924 in Bar Harbor the second child of John Theodore and Evelyn Ritchie Billings. He grew up in Seal Harbor, Maine, in the town where his grandparents kept a general store for sixty years, Billings Market. Mr. Billings later chronicled the close knit community where he was nurtured during the Great Depression, in his self-published memoir, "The Village and the Hill."
After graduating from Gilman High School, Mr.Billings enrolled in Aircraft Engine School and was drafted into the Army Air Corps in September of 1944. Mr. Billings became a navigator, and rose to the rank of First Lieutenant completing twenty missions during World War II and earning the air medal with 3 oak leaf clusters and 3 battle stars. On one occasion during the war, Richard's plane was shot down over England by friendly fire. He and the crew bailed out at the last minute while the pilot and co-pilot stayed aboard. They gave their lives to divert the disabled plane away from the town, crashing it into an uninhabited bog. His family treasures a written account of this incident Mr. Billings sent his mother during the war.
- After the war, Mr. Billings returned to Maine and
graduated from Colby College, where he fell in love with, and married, his wife, Norma Julia (Jill) Taraldsen, in 1947. Jill remained his partner, his beloved, and his strongest supporter, until his death.
- Mr. Billings earned a Master's degree in Group Work from Springfield College and was a director with the New York State YMCA for twenty years, moving his family to Henderson Harbor, New York in 1960 to develop Association Island, a former General Electric training center, into a multipurpose YMCA family conference center. The YMCA sold the island ten years later and Mr. Billings moved his family to Collinsville, Connecticut where he took a position as Eastern Regional Director of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes. Mr. Billings returned to Association Island in 1973 to run it as a non-profit organization dedicated to preserving the Island for use by the greater community.
- In 1975 he returned to Maine and served for two years as Director of the Land Use Regulation Commission in Augusta. Mr. Billings became a Certified Life Underwriter when he joined John Hancock Insurance and was President of his union. In retirement, Mr. Billings, ever active in his community, founded Informed Notaries of Maine, an organization dedicated to educating Maine notary publics.
- Mr. Billings also cultivated an enormous vegetable garden at his home on Spring Road in Augusta with his wife, Jill, a psychiatric social worker at AMHI. The couple were active in the South Parish Congregational Church. Richard self- published his memoir about growing up in Seal Harbor, and wife Jill's book, an account of their life on Association Island. He also enjoyed boating, fishing, and photography. He loved his grandchildren and treasured time with his extended family. He relished organizing summer-time family reunions, and keeping in touch with life- long friends.
- Mr. Billings was predeceased by his beloved sister, Marie Billings Walch, of Waldoboro. He is survived by his wife of sixty years, Jill, his brothers and their wives, David and Muriel Billings, Seal Harbor, Frederick and Noel Billings of Stamford, Connecticut and children Cynthia Bufithis and her husband Phillip of York, Maine, Marilyn McNamara and her husband William Vargas of Amherst, New Hampshire, John Billings and his wife Rebecca of Montville, Maine and Amy Billings of Portland, Maine. He leaves nieces, nephews, cousins, six grandchildren: Katie Oberlander, Michael Bufithis, Sean McNamara, Marcy Webster, Nora Julia Vargas, and Delia Sophia Billings, his newest granddaughter, born June 21, 2007, and three great grandchildren, Thomas Ryan and James Frederick Oberlander, and Catherine Elizabeth Webster.
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