SEDGWICK – Robert Hinsdale Paine, 86, passed away peacefully April 29, 2005, at a Penobscot nursing facility. He was born May 25, 1918, in Toronto, Canada of American parents, Martha and Louis Paine. As a boy, Robert attended school in Weston, Ontario. During World War II, he served in the U.S. Army Corps as an electrical mechanic, working on planes as well as on projects such as setting up runway lights in the North African desert and repairing a water tower in Italy. The war took him through Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Italy, India and China. After the war he returned to Ithaca, N.Y., and attended the engineering program at Cornell University just long enough to meet his wife who was also back from the war and attending Cornell. After they married on Aug. 15, 1947, they relocated to Rochester, N.Y., where he completed an engineering degree at Rochester Institute of Technology. From 1955 until his retirement in 1978, Robert worked as a quality control engineer for IBM in Endicott, N.Y. This work provided him with the opportunity to travel to Europe and Japan and in 1969, to relocate with his wife and two of their children to Stuttgart, Germany for a year and a half. From the early 1950’s until their retirement, Robert and his family spent summer vacations on the coast of Maine. On the day he retired in May 1978, he and his wife were packed and ready to relocate to the Currier House in Sedgwick which has been in his wife’s family since 1827. He was active in the Sedgwick Historical Society and was enthusiastic about learning, particularly about the Civil War. He collected an extensive library of Civil War books, all of which he read, and for several summers attended the Civil War Institute at Gettysburg College in Pennsylvania. He was an avid reader and was very handy at fixing just about anything. Robert was predeceased by his wife of 57 years, Edith on Feb. 9, 2005; three brothers and a sister. He is survived by one brother, Hibbard Paine of Potomac, Md.; three children, Stephen C. Paine and wife, Carol, of Endicott, N.Y., Roberta M. Paine of West Swanzey, N.H., Donald C. Paine and wife, Althea, of Blue Hill; grandsons, Jeremy, Christopher and Andrew and wife, Tanya. A graveside memorial service is planned for Robert and Edith at 11 a.m. Saturday, May 21, 2005, at the Rural Cemetery, Old County Road, Sedgwick. In lieu of flowers, contributions may be sent to the Brooklin/Sedgwick Historical Society, P.O. Box 171, Sedgwick, ME 04676 or to Gettysburg College (for the Civil War Institute), 300 N. Washington St., Campus Box 435, Gettysburg, PA 17325. Arrangements by Jordan-Fernald, 141 South St. Blue Hill. <
ROBERT HINSDALE PAINE
