One of Kennebunkport’s most well known and admired citizens passed away on January 28th the result of an ongoing battle with cancer. Steve Emmons was born in Lexington, Massachusetts to Albert and Helen Wentworth Emmons. The family moved to Kennebunk, Maine when he was young. There he attended area schools, graduating from Kennebunk High School in 1948. After a post grad year at Kimball Union Academy, he attended the University of Maine where he played football, became president of SAE fraternity and graduated with a degree in English. An enlistment in the Army took him to Korea, where he devoted much of his free time toward teaching English to area children.

Upon his return home, he purchased a lobster boat and began a career at sea. In 1958, he married Natalie Richards and the young couple moved to the Gravelly Brook Road in Kennebunkport.

Steve lobstered and trawled for many years, studied the tides, learned the ways of the winds and the sea, and introduced his two sons to all that his hard work and keen observations had taught him. The sea was a constant source of pleasure to him and even as he moved to new jobs he retained his links to the ocean. He built his own schooner, creating and varnishing the hull, hewing the spars, and spending countless hours in the family living room hand sewing the sails. Several other boats followed, one named after his granddaughter Amy, another after his wife, the Natalie June. He sailed many races with his son-in-law Lee. Steve was always at the helm, knowing intuitively where the winds would take him.

Steve’s sense of learning and curiosity was equally focused on the land. He marveled at nature’s wonders and considered his farm a working laboratory. He protected the deer yards, fed the birds, roped off the locations of giant ant hills and bought and read nature books by the hundreds. No creature was too large or too small for his consideration. In the 1980’s, in the midst of the development boom, when many of his contemporaries were selling their holdings for considerable sums, Steve and Natalie pledged their 108 acres, house and barn, to the Kennebunkport Conservation Trust. He would devote his eventual retirement, he decided, to showing children the discoveries he had made under the microscope and in the forest. Nothing made him happier than to lead a class fieldtrip into the woods. “Nature is our life support system; too often children are involved in just human activities. It is important for children to realize the value of nature.” he said.

Steve worked for the Kennebunkport Police Department and later served on the police commission. He worked at the Keuffel & Esser factory and then for the KK & WWD, the Kennebunk’s water district. His involvement with the Kennebunkport Conservation Trust increased after his wife Natalie’s death. He became a land steward and took up nature photography, capturing on film the tiny miracles of nature. His naturally artistic eye led him to dewdrops on an emerging bud, or a spider’s web, the ice crystals on a branch or the wings of a bird, those things which so often escape the notice of most. His photographs were enlarged or made into greeting cards, with the funds going to the Trust. When it came time for that organization to construct a headquarters, Steve facilitated the action by donating his land, resources and energy, and took great pride in the resulting structure and what it represented.

He is survived by sons Etienne “Spike” of South Portland and Foxwell of New York City, a step-daughter, Linda Rossnagle Guite and her husband Lee of East Boothbay, four grandchildren, five great grandchildren and a brother, David, of Hobe Sound, Florida.

Steve Emmons left this world in the manner in which he had lived, at his own pace in his own time, remaining in the home that he loved until the very end. He knew better than most that, “to everything there is a season”. A fine, ethical, generous man, he left all who knew him, and the world in which he lived, better by the experience. His legacy will live on and be perpetuated by the nature preserve and its library which bears his name, the Emmons Preserve” and those organizations through which his philosophies will endure.

An open house time of remembrance honoring his life will be held at the Emmons Preserve on Sunday, February 27th from 1:00 to 5:00 p.m.

Memorial donations in his name can be sent to:

The Kennebunkport Conservation Trust, P.O. Box 7004, Cape Porpoise, Me. 04014

Bigelow Lab for Ocean Sciences, P.O. Box 475, West Boothbay Harbor, Me. 04575

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