OWLS HEAD – Peter Kinney Reed Jr., 91, peacefully passed July 16, 2011, in his sleep, after a full, long life. He was born Dec. 12, 1920, at his home in Owls Head village, the son of Peter K. and Phoebe Rilla (Webster) Reed. He was the youngest and only son doted on by his parents and four older sisters.
He was able to remain in his beloved family home until the last three weeks of his life. He grew up on the shore around the wharf that his father owned and he later inherited and ran for years. He was a well-known icon and very involved in the local community. After he graduated grade school, his sister, Lillias, sent him to Lee Academy, where his sister, Leona, taught. When he finished his schooling, he entered the U.S. Navy for a stint of four years. He came home and worked on local fishing vessels and helped his father run Pete Reed’s Wharf. He was very involved in Owls Head Volunteer Fire Department, which his family helped establish. He became Owls Head harbor master and maintained the mooring charts for all the Owls Head harbors well into his retirement. In the wintertime when the fish business was slow he was a trapper. He did quite well at this and loved being in the Maine woods. As he got older, he stopped trapping for pelts and started relocating wildlife from homeowner’s property to preserves. Pete was very interested in the history of his town and collected many photographs and stories of local citizens, buildings and boats. He married at age 52 to Martha Haskins and was a caring and loving father to her four children, showing them good work ethics, how to work together as a family to maintain the family home and taking them on Sunday drives and weekend trips to his camp in the deep Maine woods on Mopang Lake to canoe, swim and hike through the woods. There were many adventures with him, getting snowed in three miles into the camp road woods, breaking down on the CCC road on the Sunday night rides home, rescuing a hitchhiker with appendicitis on the seldom traveled roads from Bangor to camp. He always got his family home safely, in time for school serenading them with “On the Road to Mandalay” and “Rally Round the Flag Boys.” Pete loved animals and when he was young had Dachshunds changing to German shepherds when he felt the last Dachshund was irreplaceable. During his years running Pete Reed’s Wharf there was always a German Shepherd around and many teenagers too. Pete had his own special nickname for nearly everyone and many of them would emulate Pete. There were many nights when Pete would wake and drive down and check on the wharf and kids that might be hanging around there. When Pete was retired, he fed the birds outside his window along with raccoons, skunks and the neighbor’s pets.
Peter was predeceased by his parents; his four sisters, Nellie Reed and her husband, Carl Reed, Elizabeth Seavey and her husband, William Seavey, Leona MacDonald and her husband, Frank MacDonald, and Lillias Sprague and her husband, George Sprague; nephew, Carl Reed Jr.; and great-great-niece, Katie Fors. Pete is survived by a large extended family, his wife and four stepchildren, and a town of citizens who will tell you, “Pete did it this way.”
A graveside service will be 2 p.m. Friday, July 22, at Evergreen Cemetery, Owls Head Village. Memorial donations may be made to Owls Head Fire Department, attention: Frank Ross, 335 North Shore Drive, Owls Head, ME 04854. Arrangements are with Long Funeral Home & Cremation Service, 9 Mountain St., Camden. Condolences, photos and memories may be shared with the Reed family by visiting their book of memories at
www.longfuneralhome.com.