Donald MacVane, of Long Island, continued lobstering until he was 90. He also was a writer and recently published a book of his recollections of his life on the island in Casco Bay, “Memories That Linger: An Anecdotal History of Long Island, Maine.” Photo courtesy of the MacVane family

Spending time with Donald MacVane was akin to a history lesson.

A gregarious storyteller who seemed to know everyone and everything about Long Island, he loved to share memories of his decades in the community 6 miles from Portland. He’d tell people about growing up during the Great Depression, of the days when most homes on the island didn’t have running water, of spending his working life as a lobsterman. People were always at the center of his stories.

“He was part of the fabric of the island,” said his granddaughter Billie Parker. “He was busier than the rest of us. Friends were always stopping by.”

MacVane, who worked as a lobsterman until he was 90, died peacefully on Sept. 15 in the house where he was born. He was 96.

MacVane, who went by Donnie, was well known on the island, where he was one of the first selectmen when Long Island seceded from Portland in 1993. He was also known for his innovative approach to catching lobsters, incorporating science and setting traps in the bay long before others did the same, his family said.

“He was instrumental in making the town what it is today,” said his granddaughter Lucy Parker. “It’s a huge loss and it’s rippling across the bay.”

As the son of a lobsterman, it was only natural that MacVane would make a living on the water. He remembered fishing for lobsters when he was 5.

“I dragged a baited trap down to low-water mark and hardly slept all night I was so excited. The next afternoon my only catch was a sculpin,” he wrote after his retirement. “A couple years later, my youngest brother, Tom, and I caught a good lobster and got fifty cents for it. Making that big money must have been what hooked me for the next eighty-odd years.”

Donald MacVane started fishing for lobster when he was 5. Photo courtesy of the MacVane family

MacVane grew up in the family home, named Camelot, and went to Portland High School, where he joined the glee club with a friend because that’s where all the girls were. For the rest of his life, he’d tell people he had professional training for singing, said his son, Tom MacVane. He went on to the Maine Maritime Academy to learn to work on engines, graduating just as the war ended and returning to the island to fish for lobsters with his father.

He was in his early 20s when he met Carolyn, a young woman from Massachusetts who came to the island with a friend. He asked her to a dance, they fell in love, got married in 1950 and went on to have four children. They spent most of their married life on the island, leaving only for a brief stint in Florida as newlyweds and to live on the mainland during the winter when their children were in school.

When his sons were teenagers and had their own boat and traps, he insisted they go out to check them every day.

“He’d get us up at daylight and say, ‘It’s the best day of the year, you have to get out there and haul your traps,’ ” said his son, Tom MacVane.

MacVane and his sons fished from a pier he built using materials he salvaged from a World War II era Navy dock on the island. The family worked together at the Bounding Maine Lobster Company, buying bait and selling their hauls together.

‘THE LAST TRAP’

Tom MacVane said his father had the first fiberglass lobster boat in Maine – named Carol after his wife – and was known as an innovator in the industry. Donnie MacVane reconfigured the heads, or nets, inside the traps, a move that allowed the family to outfish other lobstermen for years until everyone caught on. That configuration is now the standard for lobster traps in New England, his son said.

Everyday when MacVane was finishing hauling, he’d get on the CB radio and call out, “There, that’s the last trap. Time for a game of croquet before dark,” Tom MacVane said. The epitaph on his headstone is “That’s the last trap.”

Donald MacVane on his lobster boat in an undated family photo. Photo courtesy of the MacVane family

When he wasn’t working, MacVane loved a good game of horseshoes out on the Point and traveling the world with his wife. They kept a map on their living room wall with pins in all of the places they visited. They especially enjoyed visits to Vietnam and Thailand and liked meeting locals, said their son, Stanley MacVane. During a visit to Hanoi, the couple stopped to eat at Kentucky Fried Chicken and were thrilled when a group of students approached them to practice their English.

“Everything was about the people,” Stanley MacVane said.

In his later years, MacVane took to writing down his many memories of life on Long Island. He published a bimonthly column called “I Remember” in an island newsletter, then recently published a book, “Memories That Linger: An Anecdotal History of Long Island, Maine.”

The memories detailed in the book are both big and small and often laced with humor. He described how island boys hated lugging water to their homes, but fought to fetch it at school. There are snippets about the people on the island, the days after the bombing of Pearl Harbor when store clerks took all the “Made in Japan” items off the shelf and the presence of the Navy during World War II, when the island was used as fueling depot for the Atlantic Fleet.

‘LIKE ROME ON A SUNDAY MORNING’

“During the war all the anchored ships would ring bells when it was foggy, making it sound like Rome on a Sunday morning,” he wrote.

The MacVanes, who had 14 grandchildren and 15 great-grandchildren, were married for 65 years until Carolyn’s death in 2015. Tom MacVane said his father “missed my mother horribly” and continued to celebrate her birthday and their anniversary.

“I know he’s someplace where he’s with my mother,” Stanley MacVane said. “He got so old that all of his lifelong friends have passed on. I guess he was ready to move on himself.”

Billie Parker said her grandfather lived life to the fullest – and kept telling stories – right to the end.

“I can’t express how loved he was and how loved he made all of us feel. He was always a joy to spend time with,” she said. “You can’t ask for more in life than he had.”