RUMFORD — Joseph Sirois has been a lifelong learner, and he’s not done yet.
The basement of the home he shares with his wife, Anne Wood, is filled with scores of books and music CDs. The walls of the home are decorated with many fine art works.
Sirois, 69, retired this week from a 23-year career in human services. That was preceded by 28 years in the U.S. Navy, from which he retired with the highest rank an enlisted military person can earn, master chief.
This modern-day Renaissance man dropped out of school at age 16 to go to work in a mill in Augusta, then entered the Navy at age 18 where he took any training or college courses he could.
He eventually earned his high school diploma, bachelor’s and master’s degrees in social sciences and education, and completed all but the dissertation for a doctoral degree.
And on Tuesday, he retired as executive director of the Hope Association in Rumford where he served for eight years. Prior to that, he was director of Rumford Community Home for 12 years.
Sirois said he knew he wanted to return to his home state when he left the military, and he knew he liked people. After sending out dozens of resumes, he landed his first human services job as director of Marshwood Health Care Facility in Lewiston in 1987.
“The Navy was the greatest adventure. I couldn’t imagine my life taking the turns it did without it,” he said Thursday afternoon.
An aptitude test in the military sent him into the hospital corps. He prepared medics to go to Vietnam, sometimes served as the only medical person on a ship, and pursued as many courses in philosophy, religion and ideas as he could.
Leading two of the area’s health-care related facilities gave him a chance to use his boundless energy to establish new, more modern programs. He could also use his love for music with many of the clients in the nursing home or center for people with intellectual disabilities.
“I feel I’ve made a difference in people’s lives,” he said.
In addition to his positions in the caring services, he has also given of himself to the community through his active memberships in the local Rotary, the Greater Rumford Area Ministers Pantry Service, the Friends of Rumford Public Library, the local healthy communities coalition, and the Unitarian/Universalist Church.
In recent years, he has taken courses offered through Bangor Theological Seminary, and although he doesn’t believe he will become a pastor of his church, he hopes to become more involved in a larger UU church. The local one meets in his living room.
He has decided to make no new commitments for one year after retirement. He and Anne will take short trips, such as a recent one to Boston to attend an opera and a ballet, hike the local trails, plant a vegetable garden, and read many more books and listen to music ranging from jazz to world.
Then the “third chapter” of his life will begin. He’s not completely sure what that will be, but one of his passions is universal health care for every American.
As a military retiree, he and his former wife, now deceased, never had to worry about losing their home, or making a choice between food and medicine when medical bills piled up. He believes every American should have the same benefit.
As a newly wed and new retiree, he said life has never been better.
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