SOUTH PARIS – Arthur A. “Red” Gauthier of Buckfield, died on Thursday, Jan. 12, at the Maine Veterans Home, where he had been a resident since late September 2005.

He was born in Willimantic, Conn., in 1928, the son of Hector and Marie Rose (Garceau) Gauthier. His family moved to Harrison in the mid 1930s, where Red attended the village school. The family later settled in Auburn.

A hard worker from an early age, one of his first jobs was sawing ice on Long Lake. Before he reached his teens, he had a team of steers he trained to work in the woods. As a young man he worked clearing trees from the land that became the Brunswick Naval Air Station.

A variety of jobs followed, including work as a machinist for Lewiston Shoe Machinery, Inc. and several years with the Auburn Highway Department. In the 1970s he began a long career with the town of Buckfield.

He worked on road maintenance and winter plowing. He became the town dump attendant and was a central figure in the transformation of that facility into the Buckfield-Sumner Transfer Station.

In his position at the transfer station, he became a widely known local celebrity, whose bottomless pot of fairly lousy coffee was enjoyed by good cross-section of itinerant local males of a Saturday morning. This status was attested to in an article about Buckfield, “A Sense of Community,” which appeared in the Maine Sunday Telegram at the time. He retired in 1990, to his home in North Buckfield.

He served in the United States Army, receiving an honorable discharge in 1947. He was a loyal member of the John D. Long Post of the American Legion in Buckfield.

He had a life-long and passionate interest in hunting, trapping and fishing. He loved the technical aspects of guns and shooting and at one time ran a gunsmithing business in Auburn. His expertise extended to tools of all kinds, especially those that were a part of the older, traditional ways of work.

He is survived by a nephew, CW5 Larry A. Gauthier of Fort Indiantown Gap, Pa.; a grandnephew, SP4 Craig L.Gauthier of Fort Polk, La.; and a niece, Sheryl Gauthier Carver of California.

He was predeceased by his parents; his brother, Albert “Rusty”; and two sisters, Aurore and Andrea.

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