Son of: Verne 1913
Dale Harris Bodwell of Windy Hill in North Berwick, Maine has left the kitchen. After a brief battle with cancer, Dale passed away November 8, 2022, surrounded by loved ones.
After landing a job in his teens washing dishes at The Captain's in Cape Porpoise, Dale soon found himself working as a sternman on a lobster boat for the restaurant owner's husband. In his late teens, Dale formed a short-lived scuba-diving business with his friend Wayne Berry, and while the pair mostly performed mooring repairs, they once discovered a sunken coal barge buried beneath the mud of Cape Porpoise Harbor. On dry land, the duo's band, The Inner Sanctums, performed around southern Maine-Dale played organ and saxophone-often arriving for gigs in a hearse they’d painted bright yellow.
Dale graduated from Kennebunk High School—where his father taught science for more than thirty years—and went on to attend the University of Maine in Orono.
After settling in North Berwick in the 1970s, Dale met Debra (Gray) Bodwell while sitting in the salon chair of her recently opened business, The Hair Shop. It was love at first trim. In May 1980, the couple married in an intimate ceremony in Kennebunkport. For Dale's sons from his previous marriage, Adam and Joshua, Debbie brought rock-solid stability, endless love, and countless craft projects to their lives.
The little blue cape home Dale built on Ford Quint Road was only a house until Debbie arrived and made it a home. Over the next four decades, the pair transformed the former farm, building winding stone walls and sprawling flower and vegetable gardens that have caused many drivers to slow down over the years and admire the picture-perfect scene.
Dale loved to travel and filled countless albums with photographs of the globetrotting adventures he and Debbie enjoyed. Every adventure with Dale included one of the great joys of his life: food. When friends and family gathered at his home, Dale could be found in the kitchen, preparing a feast on his treasured Wolf range. It is impossible to overstate the pleasure he took in cooking for others: Dale loved feeding those he loved, and many lucky people had some of the most memorable meals of their lives on Windy Hill.
Easygoing and curious, Dale made friends in every room he walked into; a trait that served him well during his long career in sales. Fiercely loving and supportive of his family, he possessed a bottomless well of calm and patience. His wisdom ran deep but always contained kindness and humor.
02/12/97
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Contact: bodwell@ptcpartners.com
Copyright (C) 1996, 1997 Donald J. Bodwell. All rights reserved
Born Died Married
Spouse 11 Apr 1949 8 Nov 2022
Melissa Hemingway Biddeford, Me
24 May 1980
Debra Ann Gray Kennebunkport, Me
Children of Dale and Melissa (Hemmingway)
Bodwell
Name Birth Date
Birth Place Death Date
Death Place 1. Adam Harris 13 Jun 1972
Portland, Me
2. Joshua Matthew 9 Jun 1975
Portland, Me