LIVERMORE — Ann Gile knows what it takes to fight for your life. She has done it before.

“I’m going to give it a shot. There is no guarantee,” the 53-year-old Livermore Falls woman said Monday.

Gile is in the beginning stages of treatment for her second bout with cancer. She is Livermore’s deputy clerk, general assistance director, deputy tax collector and deputy registrar. She has worked at the town office for nine years and before then she worked at the Livermore Falls Trust Bank, now Androscoggin Bank, for 13 years as a teller and a bookkeeper.

She isn’t alone in this battle. She has her family, co-workers at the Livermore Town Office, friends and community members in three towns rallying around her.

They have a benefit spaghetti dinner planned with Livermore Fire Chief Don Castonguay making his special sauce from 4 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 3, at the Knights of Columbus Hall in Jay.

Gile was recently diagnosed with bone cancer.

“I was having really bad backaches and couldn’t figure out why,” Gile said while surrounded by benefit supper planners Monday in the meeting room at the town office.

The pain was especially bad when she was shoveling snow this past winter. She went through physical therapy and it wasn’t working, she said.

When she couldn’t take the pain anymore, she told Darren, her husband of nearly 25 years, to take her to the hospital.

Doctors discovered she had a major infection and during the process of trying to clear it up, it was determined it was cancer-related.

“I was unhappy but not surprised,” Gile said of the diagnosis.

She had breast cancer at age 40 which went into remission after treatment. About four years ago she had part of a lung removed due to damage that occurred during radiation treatment the first time around with cancer.

Gile said she is hoping to be able to go back to work.

“She has a great attitude. She’s kind of like our little fighting spirit. Put us together and we’re unbeatable,” said Town Clerk Renda Libby, who works closely with Gile.

Megan Dion of Livermore has been helping out at the town office in Gile’s absence and doing a tremendous job, Select Board Administrator and town Treasurer Kurt Schaub said.

“Ann is our Radar O’Reilley. She has the ability to anticipate our needs and just steps up and does what needs to be done and the people love her,” Schaub said.

Gile is normally involved with helping to put together fundraisers for others but this time it’s different. She is the one being helped.

“She is a fighter,” Libby said. “I told her the day she was diagnosed that she needed to fight harder and be stronger than she has been before because she has a whole community, friends and family, and we’re all here to help her fight, all in different ways. She is not in this alone.”

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Benefit dinner

What: Benefit spaghetti dinner for Ann Gile

When: 4 p.m. to 6:30 p.m., Saturday, Oct. 3

Where: Knights of Columbus Hall in Jay

Admission: $7.50 adults, $4 children 12 and under

50/50 raffle; donations being accepted

Advance tickets available at Livermore Town Office or from Renda Libby,
897-3207, Ann Hammond, 897-2503, Joanne Leighton, 897-6189, Jean
Tardif, 897-5091.

Town of Livermore Office staff, friends, family and community members of three towns are rallying around Ann Gile in her fight against cancer for the second time. A benefit supper organization team met Monday at the Livermore Town Office to work on plans for the spaghetti dinner from 4 p.m. to 6:30 p.m., Saturday, Oct. 3, at the Knights of Columbus Hall in Jay. Surrounding Gile, seated center, are from left, Kurt Schaub, Joanne Leighton, Renda Libby, Ann Hammond, Jean Tardif and Megan Dion.