Rock of Ages by Amber Skinner
The story of the the sinking of the Don continues to reach up through time, over 65 years, and inspire the community’s help. Just as the effort to rescue survivors and recover victims’ bodies was taken on by the Town in 1941, so have the efforts to solve the mystery of the disaster and to commemorate its dead.
A request was sent out to all of Harpswell for a granite rock or boulder on which to mount a bronze plaque in Mexico, Maine, to honor the 34 victims of the tragedy, which occurred in Casco Bay on June 29, 1941. Most of the victims were from either Mexico or nearby Rumford.
“Everyone was forgetting about [the sinking of the Don] and we wanted to bring it back to their attention,” Mexico Historical Society President Calvin Lyons explained.
“I had not heard the story before I started investigating it,” Stacy Welner, author of Tragedy in Casco Bay, said. “It was a piece of history [the residents of Harpswell, Mexico and Rumford] had sort of forgotten about. I just stirred the pot [by writing the book].”
Eight offers were forwarded to Welner, who was “overwhelmed by the response.” Lyons went out to inspect each one for its suitability.
A boulder from the property of Aletta Ricker was chosen and recently removed from her property by Richard Graves and Sons Excavating and trailered to Mexico by Dayl Kaulback, a descendant of one of the Don passengers.
“I saw it on the lawn and thought it was ideal,” Lyons said.
As a child, Ricker’s son, Raymond Caron, enjoyed “playing King of the Rock” on it many times, and, just as many times, remembers being told to “get off that rock!”
The Don, a cabin cruiser captained by Paul Johnson, left Dyer’s Cove on Great Island with its passengers for a day of picnicking on Monhegan Island. Somewhere along the journey, the boat sank. The cause of the disaster is still unknown, and the Don has never been located.
*A dedication ceremony at the Mexico Memorial Green is scheduled for August.
A 16-inch by 24-inch plaque, identical to the one which will be mounted in Mexico, has been donated by Lyons for a memorial in Harpswell. A location on Dyer’s Cove has been chosen, and property owner Linda Dyer Despres plans to put the memorial where the victims’ cars were parked, “right out on the point,” waiting for their return.
“My father and grandfather rowed the passengers out to the Don [the morning of June 29, 1941], so I had heard the story from them many times,” Dyer explained. “I think [a memorial] belongs here, because this is where the whole thing started.”