TOPSHAM

Anyone who drives the main streets in Topsham and Brunswick, passing over the Frank J. Wood (Green) Bridge, has probably passed Douglas Palmer many times.

Described by those who knew him as quiet and reserved, Palmer would regularly walk from his Winter Street apartment in Topsham over the Green Bridge into Brunswick. Eyes often cast downward, he’d trek all over Brunswick. He had no car, and seemed to prefer traveling on foot.

When Spectrum Generations opened its Southern Midcoast Community Center not far from his Topsham apartment 3 1/2 years ago, center director Dave Brown said Palmer “showed up after a few months and said, ‘I’d like to volunteer, what can I do?’”

He’d fold and organize newsletters, then started working at the reception desk Mondays and Wednesdays. Palmer “was the first person people saw, and incredibly friendly,” Brown said.

Those who were part of Palmer’s wide-reaching network of friends were shocked when they learned he apparently jumped from the Green Bridge early in the morning on March 10.

Palmer, 55, was a private person. Those at the community center didn’t see his struggles, Brown said, and were caught by surprise.

“We had several rough days and still have rough moments when we think about it,” Brown said. “We were all shocked. It’s just really hard to comprehend.”

Animal lover

Brown remembers Palmer asking if he could walk Brown’s basset hound, Max.

“He and Max would go off for about an hour and just have a great time,” Brown said. “He loved animals, oh my goodness. He’d talk to Max, and Max made him part of his pack.”

In 2011, the year Kathy Sullivan of Lisbon Falls retired as volunteer coordinator for the Coastal Humane Society in Brunswick, Palmer was one of the agency’s regular volunteer dog walkers.

He’d walk to the animal shelter most weekdays, walking dogs for hours at a time. Then she would see him outside with a dog, “petting and spending time with it.”

“He was just a very gentle man,” Sullivan said. “He was a great dog walker and seemed to really relate to the dogs, and the dogs to him.”

Chick Carroll met Palmer while volunteering at The Gathering Place, a drop-in day center at the Seventh-day Adventist Clothing Center on Union Street in Brunswick. He said Palmer taught art there, as well as at Sweetser’s Learning & Recovery Center on Mere Point Road in Brunswick.

When you were around him, Carroll said, “you knew you were around something special.”

Carroll, whose wife is a gifted gardener, said Palmer would often tell her the Latin names of everything she was growing.

“He knew an enormous amount about gardening and was instrumental in the garden that the soup kitchen uses to grow their own food” at the Midcoast Hunger Prevention Program at 84A Union St., he said.

Carroll said the other thing remarkable about Palmer was his art work.

Gifted artist

Whether oil, watercolors, pastels or colored pencil drawings, Palmer “had such talent,” said Nancy Herk, executive director of Brunswick Area Respite Care.

“He could just create beautiful artwork,” Herk said.

Admittedly not an art expert, she is convinced if Palmer’s artistic talents were ever discovered by someone influential in the art world, “he’d be famous.”

But maybe that would not be so good for the quiet Palmer, who also drew, took photographs, did some sculpture and was a poet.

Once he took pictures of a piece of artwork he’d just finished and left copies for people who work in the building.

“It meant a lot to me,” Herk said.

Art is always personal, but she felt it was very personal for Palmer.

Struck by the man’s kindness and sensitivity to others, “I really miss him,” Herk said. “I know he had some troubles and he fought very hard to overcome them. I would say he was a courageous person.”

She is not alone. Palmer’s sister, Shirley Richardson of Eastport, is planning a service the weekend of April 6. She said information will be posted at the Stetson’s Funeral Home website (www.stetsonsfuneralhome.com).

Late last week, two services were held to remember Palmer — one at The Gathering Place and one at the Sweetser’s Learning & Recovery Center. They were attended by upward of 50 people, sharing stories, tears and laughter.

His own garden

Richardson said the community felt the need to hold services on its own “and I’m really glad they did that.”

She was on good terms with her brother, who was seven years her elder, and talked to him on the phone regularly but only saw him a few times a year. She didn’t know the extent of his community activities in Topsham and Brunswick, so “it’s been quite enlightening.”

Richardson said she continues to be pleasantly surprised by how many people responded positively to her brother since he moved to Topsham around 2003 from Rockland and having lived in Portland.

She said Palmer “ended up being very happy; as happy as he could be, and well-supported and able to do a lot of things,” because he had access to good services and a very walkable set of communities.

Richardson said she, Palmer and the eldest brother, Keith, grew up with their parents on 33 acres of woods with two brooks running through it in Feura Bush, N.Y. She remembers Douglas was really into gardening even as a teenager.

The family had a large garden off the side of the house, but “over the hill from the house, down by the brook he had his own garden.”

“It was the cutest thing,” she said. “He took care of it, he did everything. He could grow things so well, was so thoughtful of what he was doing, so interested. He truly had a green thumb.”

Palmer’s brother Keith, older than him by two years, said, “We raised caterpillars and insects as kids.” Douglas was much better at this than most, starting with finding the eggs of silk moths.

Not only did he have a green thumb, “He was exceptional in his natural history pursuits,” Keith said of his brother.

Keith, who attended the University of Maine after high school, said Douglas graduated from high school in 1975 and started attending the university as well to study botany. The entire family moved to Maine.

Douglas didn’t finish college because of the onset of his mental illness, his brother said. It was a serious struggle that involved him being institutionalized at times.

But he persevered. In 1986, Douglas earned a bachelor’s degree in art from the University of Southern Maine.

Side effects

Richardson said the side effects of her brother’s medication caused tremors his hands and legs that had grown more severe. But he never told her how bad it had gotten.

He’d been in the hospital seeking help before his death, and never called anyone while there.

She wishes he’d reached out to someone, “selfishly I say,” to give them the opportunity to respond, have a conversation, and make the difference that may have prevented the tragedy.

It is sad, she said, “no one was there with him to mark his passing.”

Keith, who lives in Hawaii, said he had a typical brother to brother relationship with Douglas. The two talked on the phone every couple of weeks, and recently he told his brother, “if he needed to talk to someone, call me anytime.”

“His suicide was a complete shock,” Keith said. “I thought things were going to get better for him if anything, going forward.” He suspects his brother was having a hard time dealing with the side effects of the medication.

He was also surprised to learn the level of his brother’s involvement in the community, especially for someone with disabilities.

Lucy Holm, who met Palmer when she first moved to the area from Illinois, worked with him on Meals on Wheels at Spectrum Generations. On game day at the center, he would play games with Holm and a group of “gals.”

While a very serious guy, “During the games, sometimes he’d laugh because we made all sorts of noise, us four girls and we forced him to laugh. … He made us out of staters feel at home. He was just a nice person and I think the area is going to miss a really nice person like him.”

Arnie Besier volunteered every Thursday with Palmer at the Mid Coast Hunger Prevention Program’s soup kitchen, where the two had “what you’d call entry level jobs peeling potatoes and cutting up celery and doing things like that.”

His comrade, however, would disappear when it was time to cut the ends off the green beans. And Palmer would always serve the table closest to the serving window, Besier said.

“As long as any of us are at the soup kitchen, any of us who knew Doug will always refer to that as Doug’s table,” she said.

Since his death, groups of people have visited and left flowers and an American flag latched to the railing of the Green Bridge.

“I’m sure he didn’t realize how many friends he had,” Besier said. “I’m certain he didn’t.”

dmoore@timesrecord.com