Dundee Park may be Windham’s best kept secret. Tucked away off River Road, the park is a peaceful setting where many come to picnic in the woods, relax on the sandy shore and swim, canoe and fish on the Presumpscot River. And keeping this park safe, clean and quiet are Dennis and Mona Dodd who live as full-time stewards at the park during the summer season.

“It’s a fun way to spend the summer,” says Dennis Dodd who has managed the park with his wife for nine seasons. “We enjoy it immensely.”

Just before Memorial Day every year, the Dodds motor up from the south in their RV to summer at Dundee Park and watch over the grounds for the town. Dennis keeps the park well “groomed,” caring for the lawn and performing needed repairs to the bathhouse, gatehouse and picnic benches while Mona manages park business and staff such as the lifeguards who keep watch on the crowds that come to swim in the river.

Before the Dodds came to live at the park, Dundee was less a summer day getaway for families and more a late-night party spot for local teenagers.

“They’d party down at the beach,” Mona said. “They’d go swimming and hoot and holler and leave trash and beer cans and things like that around.”

Complaints from park patrons and nearby residents forced former Rec Director Mark Robinson to think up a remedy to the situation. So, in 1997, he hired the roving Dodds, “full-time RVers” as they call themselves, to set up camp at the park for the summer and watch over the grounds.

But even after the Dodds began living at Dundee, teenagers would still sneak into the park through the woods to party. At first, the partiers often didn’t even know the Dodds were living on the property; that is until Dennis came out of the dark to introduce himself.

“It took a little bit of them getting used to me running them off until they finally weren’t coming during the night,” Dennis said.

The Dodds say they still have “quite a collection of lost and found items,” left by midnight skinny dippers chased off the property, which have yet to be claimed.

Though the park still deals with occasional vandalism, much of the partying has ceased and the park has dramatically improved by their presence, says Robinson, now Fayette’s town manager.

“Since they’ve been there, they’ve really got a handle on (the misuse),” Robinson said. “It’s really become a family spot now. It’s a jewel to those who have come to know it and enjoy it.”

An estimated 18,000 to 20,000 people visit the park each year. During the summer, the Dodds said, residents and families from Greater Portland and the Lakes Region come to enjoy the park as well as summer camps, day cares and senior groups. Dundee has hosted special events too, said the Dodds, such as a Russian baptism in the river and even a marriage on the beach.

“The couple asked if they could get married here and we said, ‘yup, as long as you pay the fee,'” Dennis said.

As the park closes its gate this Labor Day weekend, the Dodds will prepare to pack up their RV to make the trek south to Mission, Texas where there is a community of “RVers.”

Ever since their first road trip to Alaska, the couple, happily married for 35 years, have set up temporary residence here and there, picking up odd jobs wherever they decided to stay.

“We just love meeting people from all over, driving around and seeing the country,” Mona said.

Though they may live a roving lifestyle, the Dodds have come to consider Dundee Park their second home and the staff, their “extended family.”

“Any way you look at it, we’re the stewards of the park,” Dennis said. “It’s like our own front yard.”

Mona and Dennis Dodd stand on the Presumpscot River shore at Dundee Park where they have lived as full-time stewards for nine summer seasons.