David Calhoun served on many boards and committees in the Bath area, and often served as their president.

“He enjoyed leadership roles,” said his daughter Elizabeth McKenzie. “It’s one of the reasons he often ended up as president. He was a leader and people liked him, so he would quickly assume that role.”

She said her father could draw the best out of people and was often proud of board or committee accomplishments. While he was president of Bath’s Patten Free Library, he over saw the library’s expansion.

“He would say, ‘See my library?’ He was really proud that on his watch (the expansion) was able to happen,” his daughter said.

Mr. Calhoun died Tuesday. He was 87.

After summering in Georgetown from the time he was a child, Mr. Calhoun made it his home in 1978. He moved to Bath by 1985.

Mr. Calhoun was a real estate broker, and was involved in community politics. In the 1990s, he was chairman of the Bath Comprehensive Plan Core Committee. He resigned just a month ago from his seat on the Bath Water District Board of Trustees.

In addition to being president of the Patten Free Library’s board, he was a corporator of Mid Coast Health Services, trustee and president of Sagadahoc Preservation Inc. and trustee for the Chocolate Church Arts Center.

“Living here, he had this wonderful community of people. He was devoted to them and he felt they were devoted to him,” McKenzie said.

Through his work, he met many people and touched many lives. McKenzie said her father always had a smile or a kind word to acknowledge anyone he passed.

“He had a great charm, great charisma,” she said.

When his four daughters were young, Mr. Calhoun imparted a Christmas tradition that they all remember.

“We had a very prescribed ritual,” said his daughter Wendy Reveri.

Mr. Calhoun would read aloud “The Christmas Carol,” as his father had done every year. Then, on Christmas morning, his daughters were expected to get up, dress in their “Christmas finery,” make their beds and be downstairs in time for a sit-down steak breakfast.

Reveri said they would then march, youngest to oldest, into the living room and take down their stockings. “We’d all enjoy our stockings,” she said. “It would take a very long time, but it was something incredibly important to us.”

On Sundays, Mr. Calhoun would take the family on a walk or lead a bicycle ride. Reveri remembers, as a child, riding on the handlebars of her father’s bicycle.

“He really loved all of us,” McKenzie said. “We all knew that he loved us just as much as he could. I think he made us all feel that he was really grateful.”

Staff Writer Emma Bouthillette can be contacted at 791-6325 or at:

ebouthillette@pressherald.com