BUCKFIELD — Abe A. Kreworuka died Thursday, June 29, of congestive heart failure. He was 68.

Abe was born Aug. 16, 1948, in Coatesville, Pa., a son of Abraham George and Lillian Borrell Kreworuka.

Abe’s grandfather, Alexsei Kreworuka, emigrated from the Ukraine as a young teen. He performed as a Cossack in Buffalo Bill Cody’s Wild West Show.

Abe lived in Delaware as a child, until the family moved to Chestertown, Md., in 1959. He graduated from Chestertown High School in 1966. He served in the U.S. Marine Corps from 1967 to 1969 when he was honorably discharged as a conscientious objector. He graduated from the University of Maine at Portland-Gorham with a Bachelor of Arts degree in English in 1977. That summer he moved to Hawaii where he taught autistic children.

In June 1981 he moved back to Maine and cared for people with intellectual disabilities. On Aug. 21, 1982, he married Karen Farrington at the Congregational Church in Weld where they had bought a house that summer. Their beloved son, Cody Jonah, was born in March 1986.

An award-winning adult education teacher with SAD 9, Abe taught workplace technology skills and created community gardens through the Welfare to Work program. He later joined the Pathways from Poverty project of the Maine Rural Development Council and obtained a Kellogg Foundation grant to study ways to alleviate rural poverty which gained the attention of the Ford Foundation.

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As a community activist, Abe took on many causes for the benefit of our community. He started a program initially known as the Electronic Grange Network which repurposed older computer systems to create a community bulletin board around the county before the internet came into being.

With his business partner, Dwight Lanning, he opened the Blue internet café in Weld in 1994, which provided a space for community events and access to the internet. They also offered computers, software, technology training and website development for small businesses. Abe served as president of Blue Enterprises for the next 23 years doing rural economic development for local businesses to help bring their products and services to the mainstream marketplace.

Abe was also a writer and artist. His book, “Fields of Time,” explores the wonder of the time/space continuum. His major art project is a series of relief carvings of carnival performers once known as “freaks.” He felt a kinship with these wonders of nature and aimed to show their tortured humanity. His carvings are on exhibit at his gallery, House of Humans, in Weld. He was a videographer using cutting-edge technology to produce website content and virtual reality experiences.

He is survived by his wife and son; his brother, Lewis “Corky”; his sister, Lauri Thomas and her husband, Jack; his parents-in-law, Philip and Joanne Farrington; brothers- and sisters-in-law, Danny Farrington and his wife, Linda, Gary Farrington, Kim Nielsen and her husband, Brian, Kevin Farrington and his wife, Cindy, Jennifer Fuerstenberger and her husband, James, and Kendall Farrington and his wife, Noelle; nieces and nephews, Meagan Roduik and her husband, John, Shelton Thomas, Mandy Holt and her husband, Trevor, Joshua Farrington and his wife, Nicki, Jesse Bourgault and his wife, Amber, Brandon Nielsen, Kevin P. Farrington and his wife, Jessica, Kristen Farrington, Eve Fuerstenberger, Heather Farrington, Kyle Farrington, DoriAnn Lam, NikkiRose Lam and her husband, Steve, and Melody Lam; and great-nieces and -nephews, Darby, Emmett, Emma, Anna, Ryah, Carson, Callie, Gabriel, Luther, Abby, Kaylee, Trent and Madeline.

He is predeceased by his parents and many uncles, aunts, cousins and friends.

Abe A. Kreworuka

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