CUMBERLAND – For nearly 62 years, Dorothy Milliken would look to her left for her husband’s opinion or reaction to some television show they were watching together.

Today, his favorite chair is empty.

“I’ll look over to his chair and he’s not there,” his wife said. “It’s a weird feeling. He was always on the left side of me. In every house we lived in, the furniture was arranged the same way.”

Her husband, Ezra Carter Milliken, was a respected Portland businessman, who owned and operated the electrical contracting company, Milliken Brothers for 44 years. He died on Tuesday. He was 88.

Mr. Milliken left the University of Maine at Orono in 1947 to join his father and two brothers in the family business. He was an electrical contractor, who worked on industrial and commercial buildings in Maine and throughout New England.

His son Jeffrey Milliken of Cumberland began working with his father in 1978. He took over the family business when the older Milliken retired in 1991. He said on Friday that his father enjoyed the variety of his work.

“It was a very successful business … a leader in the industry,” his son said, reflecting on the years they worked together. “It was interesting and challenging to learn the business at a relatively young age, and try to glean what I could from his years of experience … He was an excellent teacher.”

Mr. Milliken and his wife were married for 61 years and raised five children. On Friday, she remembered their first date, chuckling at how dull it was. They had gone to the movies.

“I don’t think either one of us were impressed, but he asked me out again,” she said. “From then on, it was pretty steady. … We had a very good life.”

She reminisced on Friday about their golf trips to England and Scotland and shared memories of their time at the family camp on Rangeley Lake.

Jeffrey Milliken said once in a while, his father would catch a ride on the company’s plane to their camp in Rangeley. His brother Alfred Milliken was a licensed pilot. He remembered how the plane flew close to their camp — a signal that he was almost at the airport.

“That was our sign to jump in the car and head to the airport to pick him up,” his son said.

A passionate golfer, Mr. Milliken at one point was a member of the Woodfords Club, the Portland Country Club and the Rangeley Country Club.

His son said he will miss his father’s smile. “It was a big part of him. When he smiled, the room lit up.”

Mr. Milliken’s health has declined over the past 10 years or so. For the last four years, he had been in a wheelchair.

“When you don’t use it, you lose it. He had a hard time getting around and that was it,” his wife said. “I’ll miss having him here to talk to. I’ll miss him.”

 

Staff Writer Melanie Creamer can be contacted at 791-6361 or at:

mcreamer@pressherald.com

 

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