HARPSWELL

Head cocked to the side with a grin, Kert Brown stood out in the snow wearing an eclectic array of Hawaiian prints over Day-Glo golf socks, a putter in his hand.

It was mid-March when the photograph was taken, but even with his sturdy arms and legs exposed to the elements, Kert looked impervious to the cold.

“He was ripping through the house looking for all that gear,” said Kert’s wife, Amy, “but if you’d known him, you’d know that wasn’t such an unusual outfit for him.”

The day before he was hospitalized for complications of Guillain-Barré Syndrome, Kert responded with characteristic humor to a beachside photo posted online of his father in Florida with his own Harpswell version.

The next day, Kert called Amy from his office in Portland — he said he didn’t feel well. Suspecting it was owing to Guillain-Barré Syndrome, which he’d been diagnosed with 18 years earlier, Kert went immediately to Maine Medical Center.

Kert, 56, was hospitalized March 10 and sudden- ly passed away just one week later — March 18 — leaving behind his wife and their two sons, Jonathan, 19, and Patrick, 13.

“It was not at all expected,” Amy said. “He’d just hiked Bradbury Mountain the day before with our youngest (son).”

As an active volunteer in the community, and a seasoned fisherman and coach with extensive family in Harpswell, Kert’s loss prompted several community members to collaborate in hosting a fundraiser in support of his family.

“I always thought that I had reached out to people in the community, but I realize now how very important it is,” Amy said, noting that an overwhelming number of people were in attendance at a celebration of Kert’s life that took place last Saturday.

Born in Brunswick to a mother with family ties going back generations in Cundy’s Harbor and a father in the Navy, Kert moved often in his youth, living in Washington, Florida, Mississippi and Connecticut.

It wasn’t long after his father retired from military service, Amy said, before they moved to Cundy’s Harbor.

“He was related to everybody down here,” she said.

In 1996, Kert was first hit with Guillain-Barré Syndrome, an autoimmune disorder that affects the nervous system. He was in the hospital for more than a month, Amy said.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website, Guillain- Barré Syndrome is a rare disorder, affecting approximately 3,000-6,000 people in the United States annually.

While symptoms can be severe, leading to respiratory issues and paralysis, most people fully recover without any permanent nerve damage. Death resulting from complications of Guillain- Barré Syndrome is extremely rare.

In 1996, Kert “was completely paralyzed; he lost all muscle tone and he had to learn to walk again,” Amy said. “To give you a sense of the type of person he was, I’ll tell you, he was hospitalized in February, out in March and back on a dragger fishing by October.

“He had a work ethic like no one else,” she said, and that was the level of energy and enthusiasm that Kert brought to everything he did.

Amy, who has taught in the Lisbon school system for 25 years, said Kert knew everybody in Cundy’s Harbor and “if someone needed something, they would call him. He was a stranger to no one.”

It was having children, though, that really spurred Kert to become an active member of community organizations, Amy said.

“Once we had our boys, he became involved in anything they were involved in,” she said. “He devoted hours to helping coach baseball and cleaning up the Trufant- Summerton Field.”

Kert opened up the community school’s gym for basketball practice and kept score — even after his sons were no longer on the team — and also chaperoned nearly every school field trip.

“I’m a teacher, so you’d think I’d be the likely one to be on the Parent Teacher Organization, but I wasn’t,” Amy said. “It was him.”

For 14 years, Kert helped facilitate the Harpswell Recreation Department’s ski program, going every Friday during the season to Lost Valley in Auburn and helping teach kids how to ski.

This is by no means an exhaustive list of Kert’s community volunteering, Amy said.

After decades as a fisherman and sometimes captain, Kert became area manager for DTZ Inc., formerly UGL UNICCO.

“He had a friend who worked for the company and when he started out, he was cleaning nights to help me out during the day because I had taken a sabbatical to finish my master’s degree — and we had a newborn,” Amy said. “Within a few months they had promoted him to assistant manager and then within six months he was the area manager.”

Staggered by the loss of one who was thought of as family by so many, Juliet Williams, a long-time friend of Patrick Brown’s, together with their eighth grade classmates at Mt. Ararat Middle School and their families, worked to organize a benefit dinner for Kert’s family.

In a letter to The Times Record, Williams wrote, “Kert Brown was a wonderful person to know and to be around… He lit up any room he walked into with his outgoing nature and kind smile… Not only has his family suffered this profound loss, but the youth and community of Harpswell also deeply feel the loss of a friend.”

Williams said, as she and her classmates had grown up with Kert being a part of their lives, they felt driven “to do something to show our support and help his family during this difficult time.”

A little overcome herself by the outpouring of support for the community, Amy said, “Kert would have loved this; he loved being the center of attention.”

“We are so surrounded by love and support. It’s been hard — but we’ve had a lot of people who have stepped up,” she said. “We’re lucky that way. I don’t know how somebody would do this alone.”

A spaghetti dinner with a raffle and bake sale will take place from 6-8 p.m. Friday, May 16, at the Harpswell Community School, located at 308 Harpswell Islands Road. All proceeds will go to benefit the Brown Family.

For more information or to make a donation, contact Alison Hawkes at 751-9304.

“Please come and join us in honoring the life of a man who touched so many and show your support for the family he loved,” Williams said.

rgargiulo@timesrecord.com

A SPAGHETTI DINNER with a raffle and bake sale will take place from 6-8 p.m. Friday, May 16, at the Harpswell Community School, located at 308 Harpswell Islands Road. All proceeds will go to benefit the Brown Family. For more information or to make a donation, contact Alison Hawkes at 751- 9304.