PERU — Conrad E. Knox was honored and warmly remembered at a funeral service, fire department honor procession and grave-site interment on Thursday.

Knox known as “Connie” to family, friends and admirers, died Sunday at his home in Peru at the age of 79. 

A native and life-long resident of Peru, Knox graduated in 1951 from the old Stephens High School in Rumford. Following high school, Knox worked as a pipefitter at the Oxford Paper Co. for 40 years before retiring from Boise Cascade in June of 1991.

On April 1, 1956, he married Nancy A. Burke, also of Peru, who survives her departed husband.

Knox was known for his community involvement, notably his 60-plus years of service as a volunteer fireman for the Peru Fire Department — most of these years he served as the department’s assistant fire chief.

He was also a very active member and former president of the Peru Historical Society as well as being an avid beekeeper.

At Knox’s funeral services on Thursday morning, scores of family, friends, fellow firefighters and emergency responders from throughout the River Valley and admirers more than filled Rumford’s St. Barnabas Church to pay their respects to a dearly revered man.

Following the service, officiated by St. Barnabas’ the Rev. Timothy Parsons, Knox’s  flag-draped coffin was lifted and carried by a inter-fire department honor guard and placed on top of an early-1950s era, Dixfield Fire Department pumper, which was draped in black

Knox’s memorial truck, as well as fire-personnel, trucks from Canton, Dixfield, Mexico, Peru and Rumford fire departments and emergency personnel/cars from the Rumford Police Department, Oxford County Sheriff’s Office and Maine Forest Service led the funeral procession from Rumford 4 miles to Knox’s grave-site internment at Peru’s Demerritt Cemetery.

One of the trucks in the funeral procession, Peru E-1, bore the inscribed dedication “To Conrad and Nancy Knox for their  years of dedicated community service.”

Family, firefighters and friends gathered in the Demerritt Cemetery for the interment prayer  delivered by the Rev. Timothy Parsons and a formal, official funeral ceremony by the firefighters honor guard.

 Following the services, many shared hugs and warm memories.

“Family always came first for my husband,” said Nancy Knox, his beloved wife of 55 years. “He was a patient man with a wonderful dry sense of humor.”

“My dad was always strong,” Kevin Knox, of Peru, said. “He was always very generous, in fact, before he died, he asked that his prosthetic legs be donated to a charity for those in need in Haiti.”

“He was a man of few words,” said Bill Hussey, a friend of Connie and present Peru fire chief, “yet when he spoke his words were well thought out.”

“In all the 30-plus years I have known him he never raised his voice,” Hussey said.

“He was always so patient,” said Richard Vaughn, a fellow-firefighter. “It is too bad the younger firefighters who join the Peru Fire Department won’t have him here to patiently guide them.”

Those who wish to contribute donations in Conrad Knox’s memory may contribute to the Peru Fire Department, P.O. Box 429, Peru, ME 04290; or St. Barnabas Episcopal Church, 116 Penobscot St., Rumford, ME 04276.

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