HOULTON, Maine — Inside his modest room at the Gardiner Healthcare Facility in Houlton recently, James Brown Sr.’s aged fingers traced a laminated map of the world.
The 94-year-old talked vividly of the countries he had visited as he did so, running his fingers along the curved coast of Okinawa, next to the blue waters that engulfed Pearl Harbor, and around the circular Attu Island.
But it was his career in law enforcement he spoke of most, albeit modestly. Officials at the Houlton health care facility said recently that it was that lengthy police and naval career, his continuing ties to it, his strong bond with his family and his shining personality that led the facility to nominate him for a lifetime achievement award through the Maine Health Care Association’s Remember Me Project.
According to its website, the Remember ME project is one of the MHCA’s most popular programs. It features black and white photographs accompanied by brief biographies of pioneering, innovative and interesting residents living in Maine’s long-term care facilities.
Brown was one of only 34 winners statewide, with only two coming from Aroostook County.
Brown, who has been married to his wife, Anna, for 68 years, and has two sons, James Brown Jr. and Kevin Brown, said last week that he was surprised and honored to receive the award.
Brown Sr. served nearly four years in the Navy as a fire control man during World War II. Following that, he joined the Maine State Police and served with Troop E in Orono for seven years before being transferred to Thomaston as a sergeant for Troop D in 1957.
After reassignment in 1958, he served 17 years as a member of Troop F in Houlton before retiring as a lieutenant in 1975. Brown next worked as chief of the Houlton Police Department for another seven years.
“I have a lot of good memories of my years in law enforcement,” Brown said. “Those were the times when I met the best people in my life. I had a lot of good people serve with me and I still keep in touch with a lot of them today. Every trooper that worked for me has been in to see me at some point.”
Brown remains so revered by fellow troopers that when he was hospitalized in a rehabilitation facility in Bangor, his son, James Brown Jr. said, he was visited by a number of members of Troop E in Orono.
“That meant a lot to him,” said Brown Jr.
The elder Brown also is visited weekly by current and former members of Troop F in Houlton.
“Those officers have offered to do anything for us that we need, which is a testimony to the caliber of people that they are,” said Brown Jr.
Anna Brown, who is not in a health care facility like her husband but visits him frequently, said that he has always been humble and has never bragged about his accomplishments.
That was the case last week when he was asked to talk about the most memorable case he ever worked on.
Without elaborating, he simply responded, “I worked on all of my cases with someone else.”
