WESTBROOK – There’s a bench near Riverbank Park that has Dana Babb’s name on it. It was dedicated to him in honor of his service to Westbrook.
“He found pleasure in assisting and working with the (Cornelia Warren Community) Association to donate money to worthy causes to better the city,” said his daughter Marcia Carr.
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Mr. Babb served on the association’s board of directors for 50 years, and had a hand in deciding which projects received funding.
He was responsible for giving grants to projects such as the Riverwalk, Riverbank Park, the Cornelia Warren Field and the Mission Possible teen center.
Mr. Babb served on the board until last year. He died Sunday at age 95.
Born and raised in Westbrook, Mr. Babb worked for S.D. Warren from 1937 to 1976 as an accountant and main office manager.
His daughter Nancy Godin said that, for her, having an accountant as a father helped her with high school algebra.
“He could remember how to do the algebra from high school. He helped us with things like that because it came naturally to him,” she said. “It made going through school easier to have someone like that — someone who loved you and wanted to help you get through school and succeed.”
He was very generous with his time and money, Carr said, to his family and to the community.
Mr. Babb, a member of the Masonic Temple Lodge AF&AM, was honored recently for his 70 years as a Mason. “Not too many make it to 70 years,” Carr said.
In his younger years, Mr. Babb dedicated a lot of time to his church as well. He was a founding member of the Westbrook-Warren Congregational Church’s “Thumbangers.” The group of men would meet every Saturday morning to work on projects around the church.
“Whether it was painting the parsonage or building classrooms,” Carr said, her father was there to help.
When his wife, Margaret, died in 1998, he donated a large sum of money to the church in her name to maintain the organ, Carr said.
His wife taught piano and played the organ for the church, so he understood how much it cost to maintain the instrument.
Mr. Babb lived independently until last month, and it wasn’t unusual to find him outdoors raking or climbing a ladder to do something. Last summer, Carr said, he was on a stepladder, caulking the windows of his garage.
“He liked to be active and doing things. He didn’t want to rely on other people,” she said. “He would do as much as he could.”
Mr. Babb enjoyed the times when his family, including four children, 11 grandchildren and 13 great-grandchildren, could be around him.
“We always got together,” Godin said. “Just to be together, just because. We had a lot of love and laughter. It was a fabulous family. Still is.”
Staff Writer Emma Bouthillette can be contacted at 791-6325 or at: ebouthillette@pressherald.com
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