Spend some time chatting with 85-year old Dr. Charles Burden and you’ll come away thinking, “Now there’s a life well lived!”

Burden compiled a fine record at Morse High School, which earned him admission to Yale in 1951. Incidentally, as a student at Morse, Burden held down a part-time job working as the circulation manager for the Bath Daily Times, a predecessor of The Times Record.

After graduating from Yale, where he majored in zoology, Burden went on to Harvard Medical School. His medical residencies convinced him that he wanted to work with children. “I decided I didn’t want to work with old people,” he says, “and I loved pediatrics.”

Burden treated about 10,000 children from the Midcoast area during his 44-year career. “It was wonderful to see kids grow up and then to take care of their children and even their grandchildren.” He was also a proponent for the establishment of a single major hospital (Mid Coast Medical) to better serve Bath, Brunswick and surrounding towns.

Early in his medical career, Burden tapped another passion, which he has pursued for over 50 years — and counting. Driven by an interest in Bath’s shipbuilding heritage, he joined the Marine Research Society of Bath in 1964, which had no physical headquarters at that time. After the society was donated an old house on Washington Street, Burden got appointed to the museum committee, which proved to be a perfect fit.  The society did business for years as the Bath Marine Museum, but in 1975 the name was changed to the Maine Maritime Museum.

Burden spent so many hours during those early years on Sundays working on exhibits in the museum that his five kids began referring to it as his “church.”  He has also spent countless hours over the decades on the lookout for marine history artifacts, which he purchases and donates to the museum.

In 1989, the museum built its three-story climate controlled Maritime History Building, adjacent to and just south of the Percy & Small Shipyard.

Burden served as an active member of the museum’s board of trustees throughout its period of growth. Today he holds the title “trustee emeritus,” but museum employees refer to him as “Charlie,” with a mixture of affection and appreciation for all he’s done — and continues to do — for the museum.

“Charlie” was good enough to give a tour of the Maine Maritime Museum to Tina and me. Incidentally, it’s most definitely worth a visit on a rainy day — or any day. During the tour, Tina stopped to observe a talk given by a museum tour guide to a group of school kids. “They were totally engaged,” she says, “It was just wonderful!”

So there you have it. A man who’s spent his career serving children and his spare time building an extraordinary marine museum can know that his twin passions blend well. Now that’s a lasting legacy.

David Treadwell, a Brunswick writer, welcomes commentary and suggestions for future “Just a Little Old” columns. dtreadw575@aol.com.

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