Ronnie Chase Sr. died a day or so ago.  We last saw him at the 90th birthday party his children threw for him at the Neighborhood House in June.  I passed the news to several people who have lived here for years.  I was stunned when they didn’t seem to know who he was! “Weeelll, its neigh time they found out,” as Ronnie would say.

       Ron was a native in the truest sense – a descendant of the Bartletts of Bartletts’ Island.  He was an Ober, whose family ran Northeast Harbor’s meat market (the current Redfield building), a dry Goods store (Where John Sheets now is), and a grocery where the branch office of The First is now located.  Ronnie acquired the old meat market through his mother and for many years operated Ronnie’s Lunch in the building – it was the teen-agers’ hang-out when I was one.  Ron was a paid fireman, which meant he was also a dispatcher, an ambulance attendant, and an officer of the old Northeast Harbor Fire Company. 

      Ron was a veteran who served in the Army Air Corps in North Africa during World War II, and trained as a ball turret gunner on the B17.  The ball turret was a half-round, plexiglas bubble on the bottom of the fuselage.  It carried tandem-mounted .50 cal Browning machine guns.  The gunner controlled right and left aim by rotating the bubble with foot pedals, and raised and lowered his aim with the grip on the back of the guns.  The gunner sat down in the bubble on the small of his back with the guns between his knees.  He had to be physically small and either monumentally courageous or certifiable insane.  The following is from rootsweb’s description of the ball turret:

 

“It hard to imagine a worse place to go to war in then the ball turret position of the B-17 Flying Fortress.  Isolated from the rest of the ten man crew, the ball turret was extremely cramped quarters and required a man with a slight build. In almost every case, there was not enough room for the ball turret gunner to wear a parachute.  . . Once inside the ball, the gunner sat all curled up in the fetal position, swiveling the entire turret as he aimed the two guns. The turret had a full 360 degrees of motion horizontally and 90 degrees of motion vertically. The gunner could be in any attitude from laying on his back to standing on his feet. The gunner sat between the guns with his feet in stirrups positioned on either side of the 13" diameter window in front. An optical gun sight hung in front of his face, his knees up around his ears and his flight suit his only padding. A pedal under the gunner's left foot adjusted a reticle on the gun sight glass.  When the target was framed therein, the gunner knew the range was correct.  Two post handles, pointing rearward above the sight worked valves in the self contained electro-hydraulic system to control the movement of the ball.   A firing button located at the end of each handle would fire both guns.  Empty shell casings were ejected through a port just below the gun barrel.”

      Phyllis and Ronald Chase lived on Summit Road opposite the Stetson School.  There, they quietly raised their two children, young Ron and Julie, and made such a quiet contribution to the well-being of the community that they should never be forgotten.  I have watched Ron ventilate the roof of a burning three-story building as the flames followed the blade of his fire axe out through the shingles.  I’ve seen him perform CPR and save a life.  I know he and Phyllis quietly supported needy children and helped neighbors in need.  Northeast Harbor and the Town of Mount Desert owe much of its tenor and character to Ronald Chase and the generation he represented. 

Until I computerized our library’s patron records in the early 1980’s, year-round residents were not expected to contribute to the library’s support beyond the modest annual town appropriation.  But, one day in 1971 when I was in the old firehouse Ron handed me a plain envelope and said, “Take this to Mrs. Joy.”  She extracted a sole twenty dollar bill and said it was a contribution to the library.  She concluded, “Phyllis and Ron have been doing this every year for as long as I can remember.”  The contributions stopped only after Phyllis died.  Correction: they have not stopped. They just no longer say “Sr.”.

     When I was a teenager I asked Ron what the long-term relationship between generation after generation of “natives” and summer people was like.  He paused for a moment.  “Eternal,” said he softly.  “We’re buried side by each.”  That’s as it should be, especially for little Ron and Phyllis.

                                                                                                Bob Pyle