The Russells: Sharing With Everyone

by Janice Hamilton

If you are new to the Pool, there’s a good chance you have never met Gordon Russell. He is a quiet person and doesn’t participate in many of the summer social or sports activities. The best chance to run into him is at the July 4 parade, when he usually rides in an army Jeep honoring veterans.

Despite his low-key presence, Gordon and his parents, Jane and Joe Russell, have made big contributions to Biddeford Pool over the years, notably granting a conservation easement of the land they own at East Point to the Maine Audubon Society so everyone can enjoy it.

Gordon Russell, 2017 July 4 parade

Gordon’s grandparents were the first family members to discover the Pool. His mother’s father, Dudley J. Hard, was a Cleveland businessman who noticed that a lot of steam generated by Cleveland’s many industries was going to waste. “He saw a way to make a buck out of it by harvesting industrial steam to generate electricity,” says Gordon. “He made a fortune.”

When Dudley Hard and his wife Mildred started summering at the Pool, they stayed in various guest houses. In 1930, they bought the big white house where Gordon still lives (on the north side of Lester B., second house past the croquet courts).

“My grandparents had a strong attachment to Biddeford Pool and that came down through my mother to me,” says Gordon. “Every year of my life, I have spent the summer, or part of the summer, here.”

When Gordon was a child, the Russells lived in Cleveland, where Joe was a businessman. In the late 1960s, they began to feel unsafe there because of growing racial tensions, so they had the Pool house winterized. As of 1970, the family split their time between Biddeford Pool and Hilton Head, South Carolina.

“My mother knew everybody around here and was a great friend of the Dupees and the Oldershaws,” Gordon recalls, while his father loved to play golf. “My memory of my father is of him with his clubs, passing through the hedge to the golf course every day.”

Gordon has been a Maine resident for almost 50 years. He attended St. Francis College (now the University of New England), and he lived at the Pool until he got married in 1978. He and his wife and two daughters lived in Saco, but Gordon returned to the Pool after his divorce in 2000 and he lives here year-round with his partner, Susan Shorey. He admits that February is difficult, but “I have two elderly cats and I can’t leave them, so I stay and I shovel.”

Reading about history and archaeology keep him busy. His interest in military history in particular stems from family history. Grandfather Hard served in the Spanish-American War and fought briefly overseas toward the end of World War I, while Joe Russell served in Europe during World War II and trained troops at Fort Polk, Louisiana during the Korean War.

Archaeology is another topic that fascinates Gordon, and he played a role in excavating a canoe that was exposed on the Big Beach by a storm in 1986. Marks left by metal tools and a step for a mast indicated the canoe was built by the settlers, but further research is impossible. Once the canoe had been removed from the wet sand, it became too difficult and expensive to preserve the wood.

Gordon’s most important contribution to the community came the day he agreed that East Point should be shared with everyone. Jane and Joe Russell owned the triangle of land at the end of East Point. His mother asked him whether he would like to build a house there. “I thought about it and realized I would have to blast rock to get water out there. Also, it would be have been very isolated, so I said no,” Gordon recalls. In 1974, the Russells signed an agreement with the Maine Audubon Society, granting it a conservation easement that preserves this spot for aesthetic, scientific and natural purposes. As a result, every year, hundreds of people walk out to East Point to enjoy the view.

Gordon also ensures that the field he owns directly across the street from his house is mowed every summer, affording an unobstructed view from Lester B. Orcutt Boulevard toward Great Pond and the ocean beyond.