Grocer Dale Tozier Sr., who expanded his family’s grocery business from Bucksport to Searsport and Brewer, died on Monday at age 73.
Friends and family remember him as a man who cared deeply about his family and the community.
“He was a great grandfather, a real family man,” his grandson Nolan Atherton said on Friday while working at Tozier’s Bucksport Variety.
Tozier worked with his father, Dana, at the Bucksport store before striking out on his own in 1986, according to his obituary.
Tozier and his wife, Mary-Jo eventually took over the Bucksport store along with grocery stores in Searsport and Brewer that have since been sold.
Tozier worked hard but also loved to spend time at his family’s camp, Atherton said. He coached little league and football and organized a weekly golf scramble at the Searsport Pines golf course, according to his obituary.
Jeremy Edwards, who bought the Tozier Family Market in Searsport in 2024 after it closed during the prolonged Route 1 rebuild, remembered Tozier as “a good steward of the community and his business.”
“When the Searsport store closed they didn’t want to sell it to just anyone,” Edwards said. “They wanted someone to run it like they did and take care of the community,”
When news came that the store would reopen, Searsport town manager James Gillway told the Bangor Daily News that he was glad the town was getting its neighborhood grocery store back. “We really miss Dale and his family being here and taking care of us,” he said.
Tozier’s pride in the community came through in a 2014 interview with The Bangor Daily News about the impending closure of Bucksport’s Verso paper mill. Tozier said millworkers were frequent customers.
“It hurts,” Tozier said. “But this community is not going to die. This is an old community. A strong community. There’s a lot of pride in this community. We’re survivors — we’ll survive this.”