Calvin Grass Sr. was teaching science at Madison High School, when, as the story goes, the aromas emanating from Jane Robertson’s home economics room downstairs enticed him.

They spent the next 60 years together as husband and wife, living in several parts of the country before finally coming back to Maine to settle in Standish.

Mr. Grass died Friday at age 84. A funeral is being held this morning at the Sebago Lake Congregational Church, where he played the organ every second Sunday of the month.

“He had a heart for music,” recalled his daughter, Miriam Walker of Standish. “Some people could sit and play technically, but there’s something that’s missing. He was able to put that soul into the song.

“He and my mom both loved the old hymns,” she said.

Mr. Grass grew up in Limestone, the youngest of five siblings. He taught himself to play piano, his daughter recalled.

“He had an affinity for music from the time he was young,” she said. “We have a song he had written when he was 12 years old.”

A local pharmacist, with no children of his own, saw in young Calvin Grass a keen mind and attention to detail that could serve him well if he took over the pharmacy in Limestone.

Mr. Grass had other plans, but was able to use his experience working in the drugstore to become a pharmacist’s mate in the Navy during World War II, which gave him access to other science courses.

Although his father and brothers never graduated from high school, Mr. Grass went on to earn a master’s degree and a doctorate in the physical sciences, and then became a teacher.

Mr. Grass taught at several colleges around the country, eventually coming back to Maine to teach physics and meteorology at Gorham State Teacher’s College – now the University of Southern Maine.

He wasn’t adored by every student, but he was always willing to help them learn, his daughter said.

“My mother said, ‘I remember waiting an hour for him out in the car. We had to go to somewhere but he was with students and he had to finish up with them,’ ” his daughter said.

“If they needed help and asked for it, he was there for them,” she said.

Mr. Grass also dabbled in publishing, printing the West Shore Notes about happenings in the Standish village of Sebago Lake. And in the 1970s he ran for governor, but lost in the primary.

His daughter recalled with a chuckle that maybe the signs in the median reading “Grass for Governor” scared a few people off.

But it was music that was his gift.

“As kids we would say ‘Can you play this?’ and (then) hum a song we’d heard on the radio, and he would sit down and play it – both hands,” she said.

As a girl growing up, she and her four siblings spent countless evenings gathered around the piano singing, she recalled.

Mr. Grass liked hymns and classical music, but his favorite music to play, she said, was whatever other people enjoyed.

A celebration of Mr. Grass’ life – replete with songs and hymns – will be held at 9:30 a.m. today at the Sebago Lake Congregational Church in Standish.

 

Staff Writer David Hench can be contacted at 791-6327 or at: dhench@pressherald.com

 

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