William “Bill” Mangum, the first president of the Holbrook Community Foundation, died on Nov. 28. He was 81.
Mangum joined the effort to save the Holbrook property — a critical piece of working waterfront in Cundy’s Harbor, along with a general store and apartments — to provide expertise as an accountant and businessman. But, as with many projects in his life, he couldn’t help but fully commit.
For many years, Mangum could be found in the general store’s basement on his way to work, checking on its water system.
“He never shied away from rolling up his sleeves — literally rolling up his sleeves — and taking the lead on figuring out a problem,” said his youngest son, Casey.
The foundation played to Bill’s strengths: his acuity for numbers and business, his passion for a hands-on restoration project, and his easy way with all kinds of people. It also appealed to his deep love for his adopted home of Cundy’s Harbor, and his appreciation for its working waterfront and the families who depend on it.
And he was just what Holbrook’s needed. “It wouldn’t have happened without him,” said Sue Hawkes, one of a group of women who led the drive to save the property.
Bill first arrived in Maine as a U.S. Navy pilot in the late 1960s. He had grown up in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. He helped his uncles and cousins bring in the tobacco harvest, brutally hard work that convinced him he wanted a different kind of life.
After college at nearby Wake Forest University, Bill joined the Navy. His wife, Paige Mangum, said that with the Vietnam War ongoing, he chose to volunteer for flight school rather than risk being drafted.
That was its own kind of gamble: Bill had never been on an airplane before he signed up. He quickly became enamored of it — especially acrobatics training in jets. But when he finished training, he requested the more sedate maritime patrol aircraft flying out of the Brunswick Naval Air Station. Trips to Vermont with a college roommate had convinced him that New England was where he wanted to be.
He was right. “He stepped out of the car and fell in love,” Paige said. When he left the Navy several years later, he lived in Brunswick before buying land on Bethel Point Road, where he built a house from an old barn. He also started his own accounting business, Mangum & Associates, now run by Casey.
In Maine, Bill developed a passion for fishing and hunting. He hunted grouse, deer and other game, often from the family’s camp in Mattawamkeag. He trained four German shorthaired pointers for hunting. His last dog, Taco, will be at his memorial service.
His oldest son, Gordon, said his father relished the guide role when they took friends hunting. He always brought steaks, salad and a bottle of wine, or made a batch of his beef stew.
“He turned into a gourmet chef when he got to camp,” Gordon said.
Bill took to many hobbies with similar passion. He restored several old cars, including a 1955 Chevy that his dad left when he died, and a couple of Land Rovers he used in the woods.
His sons worked alongside him on many of his projects. “He taught Gordon and Casey about all the things he loved,” Paige said.
One of his last hobbies was restoring canoes, most of them canvas-covered, with cedar-strip construction. Paige said he loved them for their shape.
Jerry Stelmok, of Island Falls Canoe, was a resource for Bill as he learned how to repair canoes. He said he thinks Bill appreciated the way canoe design marries form and function, and how it has stood the test of time.
Bill worked as hard at his profession as he did his hobbies.
“He had this ability, when he put his mind to something, to become incredibly skilled,” Casey said.
A math major, Bill loved working with numbers and studying the ins and outs of the tax code. Many of his clients were small businesses, and he wanted to help them succeed.
Coming from a working-class background, Casey said, “gave him an appreciation for how hard people work, and how hard work doesn’t always correlate with how much money you make.”
Bill counted a number of commercial fishermen among his clients. Corey Hawkes, a fisherman in Cundy’s Harbor, said Bill was his accountant for the last 10 years or more. “Bill’s loss is a huge loss to the community,” he said.
When the last owner of the Holbrook property at the end of Cundy’s Harbor Road died, the village worried that its fishermen would lose an important base.
The idea of a nonprofit buying and operating the property started to crystallize in conversations and public meetings. Paige remembers Bill standing up at a meeting and asking about their business plan. When it became clear they didn’t have one, it fell to Bill and Greg Barmore to write it.
Bill helped raise the initial $1.2 million needed to purchase the property through a Genesis Fund loan and donations. He lobbied Maine Gov. John Baldacci, U.S. Sen. Susan Collins, and other politicians to establish a fishing covenant to preserve the wharf’s commercial use.
Sue Hawkes said he didn’t just sit in an office. He helped build the snack bar and clean out the house on the property, which is now apartments. He helped set up a desalination system to make fresh water for the house and businesses, and he pushed to build a truck ramp at the wharf.
And for many years he was a fixture at the lobster crate races during Cundy’s Harbor Days, wrangling the young racers on the wharf after gamely testing the course — and inevitably falling in.
“If it needed to be done and he could do it, he’d do it,” Sue Hawkes said.
