Every morning, Doris Russell gets up and makes a list of things to accomplish – and another for her daughter Heather, who comes by each day, and often another for her son-in-law, and more when other family members visit.
Russell, Castine’s oldest resident, has been keeping busy and working hard like this for nearly a century.
“It’s been an interesting life,” she said Friday at the home where she’s lived for decades, surrounded by several of her grown children.
As her 100th birthday approaches on Sept. 13, Russell’s family and extended community is preparing to celebrate her as a local “matriarch” and recognizing lessons she’s imparted that have had lasting impacts.
Russell came to the area more than 75 years ago so her husband, Bob, could work as a local doctor.
In addition to raising her own family, she was long involved in numerous institutions and boards, became a major scholarship benefactor of Maine Maritime Academy, was a quietly influential figure in GOP politics for decades before becoming a Democrat, and remains a prolific gardener who donates produce around town.
Russell was born and raised in Washington, D.C. and met her future husband on a blind date while he was interning at a naval hospital. They married the next year. A Bowdoin graduate who always wanted to practice in Maine, Bob Russell soon found a residency in Bangor.
The couple chose Castine to settle in, but the town already had one doctor at the time, so they spent the next decade in neighboring Penobscot. Most of the town didn’t have electricity or indoor plumbing in the 1940s, and Bob Russell’s calls came in on a hand-cranked telephone; he didn’t bill his patients, who would either pay him if they had money or barter if they didn’t.
Doris Russell was a “city girl,” but felt immediately welcomed by the people of Penobscot, she said.
There, she learned to garden and raised five kids born within six years of each other, followed by one more daughter a decade later – “I think I grew up with them,” she said. Their barn quickly accumulated a menagerie of animals; her son Ron Russell shared as example of her pragmatism the time she dealt with a barn cat problem by giving kittens to local children as party favors.
Her local civic involvement and political career began in Penobscot, too.
Russell and another local mother helped start that town’s first library, which is now housed at its elementary school, in an empty one-room schoolhouse. Her husband ran for school board with the goal of getting a new school building by the time their oldest daughter, Penny, started classes – and was successful.
Russell began her own long political rise when a local Democratic leader asked her to get involved, despite Russell’s then-Republican activities. She went on to chair the town and county Republican committees, later becoming Maine’s national committeewoman and a delegate at numerous national conventions.
Russell also was elected to the executive council of the Republican National Committee in 1995 and served on a state committee devoted to children, youth and families in the 1960s.
A 1995 Bangor Daily News profile quoted then-U.S. Senator William Cohen who described her as the “heart and soul of the GOP,” outlining behind-the-scenes work as an operative for the party while referring to herself as a small town housewife. She was motivated by a sense of civic duty she’d felt since childhood, she told the BDN at the time.
Russell used to feel the two parties had similar goals with different ideas of how to achieve them.
“We respected each other’s views. We weren’t that far apart,” she said. “And it’s so divisive now.”
She felt that splintering in the 1990s, she previously told the BDN, but stayed active in the party until registering as a Democrat in 2015 in response to her strong distaste for now-President Donald Trump. Her son Ron Russell is now running for state representative of the Bucksport area, a seat he was the first Democrat to win in at least 60 years.
In Castine, Russell served on local boards and was involved with the Witherle Memorial Library when the institution learned it owned two valuable paintings by Fitz Henry Lane. She recalled trading responsibility with another library leader to keep the paintings safe beneath their beds at night while trying to figure out what to do.
The paintings were eventually sold at auction because the library didn’t have the means to protect them, according to its website, but the proceeds created the basis of its endowment.
Her husband held elected leadership positions and later taught at Maine Maritime Academy, where Russell got involved, too. She co-chaired the academy’s first major capital campaign, according to its former president and her son-in-law, William Brennan.
Between her own contributions and those made in her name, Russell remains one of the largest scholarship benefactors in the academy’s history, Brennan said, and has likely helped send at least a hundred students through college.
She also started a scholarship fund after her husband’s death that is now named for the couple. As a birthday surprise last year, family members raised more than $72,000 for the cause. Russell also invested in higher education for her children – though the couple put their sons to work flipping houses in the summer, which Brennan jokingly referred to as a “work farm” – and her grandchildren.
“You can enjoy your life much better,” she said of the value of an education. “But if you haven’t got common sense along with it…I’ve known some very, very smart people who had no common sense.”
Her hearing and sight have diminished – she said her hopes in the coming year include keeping busy and avoiding losing her vision – but she remains sharp and energetic, retrieving artifacts to illustrate her stories during an interview and giving a garden tour.
Large, productive plants enriched with pond water are now housed in raised beds next to the back steps, but until recently, Russell returned from her former garden at the base of a hill using a line with knots tied in it attached to the house – her “Tarzan rope,” she said.
Russell has also knitted at least 200 “prayer shawls” through a ministry program at the town’s Universalist church. She knits because she feels guilty watching television, she said. She also reads about a book a week with a magnifying glass and still irons her own sheets.
She’s lived many years with some other major rules: “waste not, want not,” “treat others as you would have them treat you,” and “no whining.” And don’t get too tied up in material possessions, she refrains. When it comes to life, “use it or lose it.”
Russell also values remembering history and daily life through the written word, and has started keeping a regular diary like her mother used to do.
Russell’s public 100th birthday celebration, including a screening of a documentary about her life by grandson Sam Russell – one of 20 grandchildren, followed by 31 great-grandchildren – will be held at Emerson Hall in Castine at 1 p.m. on Sunday, Sept. 13.
