WESTBROOK – Llewellyn “Lew” Randall Sr. died at 94 on April 2 – the same day nine calves were born on his sprawling Stroudwater Street farm that he spent his life nurturing.

The calving season has been a ritual at Randall’s iconic 160-acre farm in Westbrook for more years than anyone would know. It was a farm long before his day. Many passersby through the decades have stopped to view Randall’s Hereford cows grazing and nursing their calves in pastures along the street.

“He loved spring,” his son, Llewellyn “Arthur” Randall Jr., said about his father this week. “Leaves, trees, birds and animals, all reborn.”

While much of the Stroudwater Street neighborhood, once lined with fields, is poised for development, Randall’s pastoral farm scene won’t change. Arthur Randall confirmed the beef cattle operation would continue on.

His father preserved a way of life and farming is in the family’s DNA. Arthur Randall operates the farm with hands from three sons – Matthew Randall, Llewellyn “Buck” Randall III, and Calgary Randall.

“All the boys have a regular job,” Arthur Randall said.

Longtime Westbrook City Councilor John O’Hara this week publicly praised the Randalls.

“I’ll forever be in debt to the Randall family for keeping the land the way it is right now,” O’Hara said, “and holding back the temptation of abandoning the land, and to take the money and run.”

In recent years, Lew Randall, a World War II veteran, lived with his son on the Westbrook farm. He had suffered a series of physical maladies and most recently lived at Springbrook in Westbrook.

Not far from the farm where he was raised, he was buried this week at Woodlawn Cemetery on Stroudwater Street.

The farm passed down from his parents, Elmer and May Belle (Chick) Randall. The Randalls have had the place for about a century.

“His father before him had milk cows,” said Roger Knight of Smiling Hill Farm, following a funeral service Monday.

After World War II duty, Randall returned to his family’s land, historically known as the Trickey Farm. Randall was a rifleman serving with combat engineers in the Pacific theater. He survived the battle at Leyte, a part of the Philippines.

On his 93rd birthday, he told the American Journal that at Leyte, “my rifle never left my hand.”

The last of the area’s farming old guard, Randall was known to have carried a rifle – even while driving a tractor – to guard his cattle and his farm.

Family and friends gathered on Monday to say goodbye and pay homage to Randall in a funeral service at Westbrook-Warren Congregational Church. The Rev. Edward DeLong, who often drove past Randall’s farm, said spring was a renewal for Randall.

“I love looking at the farm,” DeLong said, noting the wild turkeys there.

Randall was a member of the generation that lived through the Depression of the 1930s, went to war, built things and didn’t complain, DeLong said.

DeLong eulogized Randall as passionate, opinionated, a proud patriot, and one who didn’t like land abuse. Years ago, Randall stood against a proposed road that threatened his farm.

In 2007, Randall riled some citizens when he filled in a part of the former Cumberland and Oxford Canal that ran through his property but was waterless. He wanted to level that part of his farm for his cattle.

DeLong said Randall was not afraid to fight for his convictions.

Randall stirred community controversy through the years. He used a pungent natural fertilizer that “we heard about in town,” DeLong recalled.

“He loved farming – he fought for it,” the Rev. Darwin Vail of the Bible Believing Baptist Church in Gray, said in the funeral.

Vail knew Randall, who also farmed in Gray, for 30 years.

“Lew didn’t fall for anything,” Vail said, adding that Randall stood for the farm.

Randall, Vail said, would hand him money to help someone in need, but he didn’t want anyone to know it.

Randall was born Nov. 5, 1919, a twin and one of 10 children. He graduated from Westbrook High School in 1940 and was drafted into the U.S. Army in 1943.

Besides Leyte, he participated in operations in Sumar and Luzon, according to his obituary. O’Hara called Randall “a true American hero.”

A Westbrook resident who spoke at the funeral, Frank Burila, a native of the Philippines, was a young boy when Randall fought there. Burila met Randall at McDonald’s in Westbrook in 1985 and the two became friends.

“He’s my hero,” Burila said. “Thank you, Lew.”

Vail said Randall often went to coffee shops.

“Lew was a very social person,” Vail recalled. “I enjoyed the stories he told.”

Knight remembered Randall as possessing a sense of humor.

“If the joke was about him, he liked it more than anything else,” Knight recalled.

In 1982, Randall retired from the S.D. Warren paper mill in Westbrook. He was active in community groups and supported 4-H activities for youth.

“He loved people who worked the land,” DeLong said.

O’Hara said Randall “gave his heart and soul to the earth.” Randall was honored in 2003 as Maine Beef Producers Association’s beef producer of the year.

“I always knew I was home when I saw the flatlands of Llewellyn’s property, saw the cows grazing in the distance, and saw the geese arrive,” O’Hara said.

Staff writer Andrew Rice also contributed to this story.

Llewellyn “Lew” Randall views some of his Hereford beef cattle in 2007. Llewellyn “Lew” Randall at his 93rd birthday celebration.