Western Maine
34
Tragedy On A Summer Afternoon Great loss to Rumford and Mexico families by Charles Francis
M
onday morning, June 30 1941, started out like any other workday in Rumford and Mexico. Men got ready to leave for their jobs at the mill. Their wives packed their lunches. School children, with the luxury of knowing that endless summer lay before them, lingered in bed or sat on front stoops thinking of all they would do in the coming weeks. Then phones, which the previous night had sounded a minor note of alarm, began ringing to spread a story that something was seriously amiss. Some thirty Rumford and Mexico area residents were missing and feared lost at sea. Just the day before, a group of Rumford and Mexico millworkers, their
wives and other family members and friends had set off for the coast for a day’s excursion on the ocean. The boat trip was to include a clam and lobster bake and a chance to enjoy an early summer day on the water. Now just over twenty-four hours later the pleasure seekers’ friends and family back home were being alerted by the Coast Guard that something was definitely wrong off the coast. Eventually, all the Rumford and Mexico excursionists would be declared dead. While fourteen bodies would eventually be recovered from the sea, the ultimate fate of the rest would only be guessed at. The fate of the boat they set out on, the Don, would
likewise only be guessed at. However, conjecture would run from everything to its having been the victim of sabotage to having been sunk by a German U-boat. There was even evidence that it might have blown up or that it had caught fire. In the final analysis, what happened to the Rumford and Mexico residents who set out for a Sunday afternoon sail in June of 1941 has gone down as an unsolved mystery. There are, however, a number of facts which came to light regarding the mystery that point to simple negligence rather that the possibility of foul play at sea or even an act of war causing the loss of so many unfortunate people. The Don set out from Dyer’s Cove
John LaBrecque Master Electrician
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