Frederick W. Burrill, 81, of Lakeville, Maine had his spirit lifted up and away on March 13, 2018 upon the blizzard winds of the month’s third nor’easter. While the winds raged outside, blowing snow into the Canadian Maritimes, Fred quietly passed away in his own bed, at his Lombard Mountain home ending his last years of disability.

He was born to Richard O. Burrill and Alberta Hutchinson Burrill. His father, a U.S. Customs officer on the Maine-Canada border and mother raised Fred and younger brother, Charles, reading, hunting, fishing, skiing, and playing sports. Moving along the border with his family, Fred attended several schools; from a one-room school in Coburn Gore to the school he called his own, Limestone High School. His education continued with Ricker College (B.A.), a National Science Foundation 3 year scholarship to Stevens Institute of Technology (Algebra), University of Maine, Orono (MEd, Administration) and Penn State University (Nuclear Science Concepts).

During the late 1950’s into the early 1960’s Fred was a member of the Maine National Guard and taught Math and Science at high schools in Hodgdon and Harmony, Maine and in Arlington, New York. In 1966, having settled his family in Freeport, Maine, he finished his final twenty-eight years of teaching at Morse High School in Bath, Maine where he also served as a baseball coach and as faculty advisor for the student-run radio station, WMOS-FM.

In Freeport, where he resided for over 30 years, Fred and wife, Mary, owned and operated Burrill’s Mobile Home Park for many years. He was also a partner in B & E Yard Care, worked at several area hardware stores and was a seasonal L.L. Bean employee.

A lifelong sports fan, Fred could almost always be found officiating, volunteering at or coaching a ballgame. He was an ASA softball umpire, an IAABO Basketball official, JV baseball coach and a frequent game operations staffer at Morse High School sporting events. Fred particularly enjoyed teaching the game of baseball; serving as an assistant coach at Morse and coaching Little League baseball in Freeport. He was the proud coach of the L.L. Bean Little League team and several Freeport All-Star teams for nearly twenty years.

Fred carried his enjoyment of sports to the airwaves, serving at various times as a radio announcer, DJ or Sportscaster at WABM, WPOR, WCOU, WFAU, WKXA, and WMOS. He was also a HAM radio operator under call signs: KN1KEB, KA1JAV, and Silent Key N1EDB.

In their sixties, Fred and Mary found themselves in Lakeville, Maine where the two of them built a masonry, log-end home; mixing cement in a wheelbarrow and laying up logs. They had been happily living there in the woods for sixteen years canoeing, fishing and walking in the woods until Fred’s passing.

Fred and Mary considered their greatest accomplishment and best investment of a lifetime to be their three children: Richard S. Burrill and his wife, Jillian of Albany Township, Diane Laffely and her husband, Samuel (Sam) of Brunswick, and Frederick W. (Dusty) Burrill II of Woolwich; with the best return on that investment being worldclass grandson, Michael P. McPherson of Westbrook, and magical granddaughters, Lily Dawn and Kimball Rose Burrill of Albany Twp.

Also grieving are: sister-in-law, Nancy, wife of the late Charles Burrill and their children: Rebecca and Sherman Mitchell, and Steven and Bethany Burrill and their daughters; brother in-law, Richard Mitchell, Jr. and Jane of New Limerick and their sons: Richard Mitchell III and Heather, and Greg Mitchell and Mary Beth and families; William P. Mitchell, and cousins, Mildred and John Sinor and Tom Sinor of Springfield. In Lakeville, Fred is lovingly remembered and sadly missed by Skeet and Mary Burrill.

Condolences may be offered on Fred’s memorial page: obituaries.bangordailynews.com/obituary/frederick–burrill-1936-2018-1052349936.

The Lake Isle of Innisfree

W. B. Yeats, 1865 – 1939

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,

And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made:

Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honeybee;

And live alone in the beeloud glade.

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,

Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;

There midnight’s all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,

And evening full of the linnet’s wings.

I will arise and go now, for always night and day

I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;

While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,

I hear it in the deep heart’s core.