Before Faye Brown passed away in mid-February, she told people she didn’t want a funeral. She didn’t like people making a big fuss about her.

It left those close to her wondering how they could celebrate a woman who gave so much of herself to others and her community. And for them, it’s fitting to plant a garden and have a public day celebrating volunteerism in her honor.

In a time when volunteers and citizen-led efforts are increasingly harder to come by, Brown’s legacy speaks to the ways in which one individual can inspire others and spark positive change in a community.

Over the years the Lisbon native was an unofficial town historian capturing photos of the 1987 Worumbo Mill fire from her kayak on the Androscoggin River and later capturing some of the last photos taken of the building from the air before it was torn down. She also created a documentary about when the television show “Truth or Consequences” came to the Worumbo Mill in the 1950s.

In addition to the many Moxie Day Parade floats she constructed over the years, for the town’s 200th anniversary Brown started the Worumbo Androscoggin River Race during the Moxie Festival, with 63 boats and more than 100 paddlers entering the race its first year. She organized the race for many years, growing it to become the largest flat-water race in the state at that time.

She sponsored and managed teams for the Lisbon Junior Athletic League, eventually serving as vice president for several years. She served as the town’s public library board president for several years. And to top it all off, she is credited with saving a family from a burning building, according to her obituary.

All of that is even more impressive given some of the adversities Brown had to overcome early in life, which included having a club foot and losing both parents at age 10.

She was raised by her sister in what those closest to her describe as a loving home, also joining the local 4-H club, which kicked off a lifetime of community service.

But what Brown was perhaps best known for in Lisbon was her town beautification efforts, planting flowers.

Sowing beauty

Like many in Lisbon, George Janosco knew of Faye Brown before he became close to her. She was a fixture downtown in her barbershop and a bit of a local legend by the time he started gardening with her.

From the very first project Janosco worked on with Brown, he knew her to be funny, hardworking and committed — she always followed through when she set her mind on something.

“A lot of people would just say ‘Oh, that’s the way it is’ but that wasn’t the way it was with Faye,” he said. “… Our community was richer for her, that’s for sure.”

Janosco’s Slavic grandparents gardened when he was growing up in Lisbon Falls. His grandfather grew vegetables and his grandmother grew flowers behind their home where three generations of his family lived. He always preferred to plant flowers with his grandmother.

Brown also grew up in a family that gardened and grew vegetables, so naturally she and Janosco were both drawn to a townwide beautification project through the local chamber of commerce in the 1980s.

It was then that Janosco got to know Brown, though he had been getting haircuts from her for years. They were in charge of planting flowers in a box in front of a church on Lisbon Street.

He watched her quickly expand the project beyond just the one box. Soon she was raising funds to plant more flowers, along roads, in parks and other public-facing spaces. She even helped people plant memorial gardens for their loved ones — an effort close to her heart, Janosco believes, as she had suffered great loss at a young age.

Out of those gardening efforts blossomed endeavors aimed at incorporating others in volunteering for the cause.

They included the Green Thumb Gang, a group of local elementary schoolchildren who helped her plant flowers around town. In return she sowed in them the value of civic engagement and volunteerism.

Brown also thought the town should have a gazebo, so she headed up a successful fundraising effort to construct one across from Lisbon High School, according to her obituary.

Janosco believes there aren’t many public flower beds in town that haven’t had Brown’s hands in their dirt. 

“If you see the gardens around town, she had her finger in every one of them at some point,” he said.

The people organizer

Kerry Conroy remembers when Brown talked her into helping out with the Green Thumb Gang many years ago when they were gardening. Conroy didn’t have much experience, or interest, in gardening.

She was much more adept at making people’s hair look beautiful. But nonetheless she agreed to help. But it wasn’t until she finished her first planting session that Brown told her she had sowed the plants upside down.

It is one of many endearing memories of a woman who became a friend and fixture in Conroy’s life.

Conroy had been cutting Brown’s hair for a couple years when she considered leaving the salon she was at and perhaps look to Lewiston or Auburn for work.

Brown did not want Conroy to leave town so she worked her contacts and helped find Conroy a space to open her own salon in 1991.

Brown stepped away from barbering in the late 1990s after 54 years and worked part time at Conroy’s salon, providing a service and a listening ear for clients who shared their joys and struggles.

“She was always about solving other people’s problems and helping them along with whatever — she was just a town person,” Conroy said.

Faye Day

When Traci Austin and her husband owned Frank’s Restaurant and Pub in Lisbon Falls, they displayed photos of historical events in town. Brown submitted a few she snapped of the Worumbo Mill fire in 1987.

As a member of the Friends of Worumbo, which helps maintain town property, Austin and the group are helping to plan Faye Day and create a memorial garden on the old mill property to honor Brown.

The group plans to plant flowers inside a Moxie-orange Old Town canoe on the old Worumbo Mill property along the Androscoggin River and add other symbols to the garden representing the things Brown was involved in, including the Moxie Festival, the Worumbo Androscoggin River Race and town beautification efforts.

Faye Day is set for Saturday, June 6, from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. near the Worumbo Mill site and will offer games, kid activities, food, music and the garden dedication. The public is invited to attend.

Donations for the dedication can be made at the Lisbon Community Federal Credit Union or people can write checks to Friends of Worumbo, with “Faye Brown” or “Faye Day” in the memo line. For more information email [email protected].