Glenn Carver is trying to stop thinking about the way his mother died.
But it’s very hard to do.
Helen Carver, his 83-year-old mother, died of blunt force trauma in her Owls Head home on Thursday. A local woman, Sarah Richards of South Thomaston, was charged Friday in connection with her death and is expected to make her first court appearance Monday.
“To go out this way is the hardest part. To be brutally beaten and killed,” he said Saturday from his home in McMinnville, Tennessee. “She loved dad, and I know she’s up there with him. But I can’t get past this part. She did not deserve this.”
Glenn Carver said that his mother had hired Richards’ father to do her snow removal for the winter, but in December the man told Helen Carver he couldn’t do it anymore.
“He said his daughter could, and that was how that ended up,” Glenn Carver said.
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The day his mother died, she had talked to her eldest son, Robert Carver of Bath, and told him she suspected that Sarah Richards had stolen a credit or debit card from her, Glenn Carver said. He said his mother reported the alleged theft to police.
Later that day, Robert Carver tried calling his mother and couldn’t reach her, the Village Soup newspaper reported over the weekend. He drove up to check on her and found her in the home, according to the newspaper.
“I’m just having a hard time about the way she was taken from us,” Glenn Carver said.
He hopes that those images eventually will be replaced by good memories, of which there are many. He described Helen Carver as a hardworking and kind woman, who raised three children with her husband of 55 years, Robert. Robert Carver served aboard a minesweeper in the U.S. Navy, and after his honorable discharge in 1952, he came home to Knox County, where he worked in the grocery business. He worked in A&P stores in Rockland; Hollywood, Florida; and then Bangor, where Glenn Carver and his siblings attended elementary school. He remembers that his parents were always very close.
“I don’t even remember them having a fight,” he said.
[Owls Head woman killed in her home remembered for strong faith]
The elder Carvers had a bond so strong that one night, when Helen and the kids were watching TV in their Bangor home while Robert was still at work, Helen suddenly got “weird and nervous.”
“She tried to make a phone call and got no answer at the store,” Glenn Carver said. “She knew something was wrong with dad.”
She was right. Her husband had been robbed at gunpoint, and somehow Helen Carver seemed to know.
“That’s how close those two were,” her son said.
After a time, his father decided to look for a grocery store of his own. The family traveled down the Airline Road to look at a store for sale in the Calais area, and then another store in Island Falls. But they settled on a store in their old stomping grounds in Thomaston, and ran Carver’s Market together from 1977 until 1989.
The family moved back to the Owls Head house where his father had grown up, Glenn Carver said, even though it was initially missing some critical amenities such as running water and indoor plumbing.
“There was a two-seater outhouse out back, and buckets to collect the rainwater,” Glenn Carver said. “They put in a lot of work and sweat equity to make it a nice home.”
When his father died in 2012, the kids wanted Helen Carver to move in with one of them or to live in a retirement home so she would have company. She wouldn’t hear it, her son said, because of all the memories of her husband.
“I think that’s why mom didn’t want to leave the house. I think she just felt like she had to stay there,” he said. “That’s where dad was at.”
[Woman charged in connection with Owls Head death has long criminal record]
After losing her husband, Helen Carver had a hard time. But then she joined the Owls Head Baptist Church, which was close enough to her house she could get there with the help of her walker. The church made a big difference, her son said.
“They welcomed her with open arms,” he said. “The people at the church have been really good to her.”
In her last years, even though her mobility diminished, his mom kept on being part of the church community. At home, she enjoyed watching game shows such as “Jeopardy!” and “Wheel of Fortune” and playing numbers games like Sudoku. She worked to keep a positive outlook on life, her son said.
“Even though she couldn’t get around, she wouldn’t let things get her down,” Glenn Carver said. “She was quite independent. She had to be independent, to stay there and live by herself.”