Dolard “Del” Gendron drives his jeep down Main Street during the 2015 Memorial Day Parade in Lewiston. Russ Dillingham/Sun Journal file

LEWISTON — Dolard “Del” Gendron was a pillar of his community and the nucleus of his family, according to three of his children, Diane Gendron Darling, George Gendron and Michael Gendron.

Del passed away on Sept. 7 at the age of 97. He died at Lewiston’s Marshwood Center after a brief illness.

Dolard “Del” Gendron, who served in the U.S. Navy in World War II, carries the Navy flag in 2013 during “Salute to Current Military Men, Women and Veterans” at the Androscoggin Bank Colisee in Lewiston. Russ Dillingham/Sun Journal

Diane wrote her father’s obituary which appeared in the Sept. 15 edition of the Sun Journal. Del was known for his many businesses including Gendron & Gendron and for his philanthropy, which included years of donations to the YWCA, Franco Center and the installation of a fighter jet, tank and Jeep at the Veterans Memorial Park in Lewiston.

While Diane shared some 10 decades of her father’s personal life, business life and philanthropy, it wasn’t quite possible to fit all that the man meant to his family and community. Diane and her brothers had much sentiment to add to Del’s successes, achievements and memory.

“He always said he loved his family, his country and his community,” Diane said.

He was a family man, the three siblings agreed, with the strongest work ethic and greatest compassion for his community. Del instilled hard work in his children and always told them that hard work would reward them some day.

“Our weeks weren’t five days,” Michael said. “They were six … and he would work sometimes 60 or even 80 hours a week” to make sure his many businesses were running smoothly.

“’Look, whatever you start, you finish,’ he’d say,” George said. “’If you get a problem, you sit down and whether it takes three seconds or three days, you figure it out, and you move forward.’ For dad, there were no excuses.”

After all, the man purchased Fillion Construction in 1971 and, with the help of his brother Bert, built one of Maine’s largest construction companies, Gendron & Gendron, Diane said. The business passed down to the siblings’ brother, David, who passed it on down to his son, John, in 2017.

When it came to life advice, Del would neither give his kids the answer nor discourage them in their efforts to solve their problems. He gave them riddles.

George recalled posing an idea to go into a different kind of business and his father simply told him, “George, you’ve got enough hotdog stands, you think?”

“That meant, ‘hey, maybe you’ve got enough on your plate,” George said.

The Vietnam War was heating up around the time George returned from his third year in college, so he figured he would follow in his father’s footsteps and enlist. Del served in the U.S. Navy amid World War II.

“Dad said the lottery is coming up in about 10 days, so what you should do is you should wait until they pick your number,” George recalled. “If the guy upstairs floating with the angel wants you to go, he’ll give you a low number.”

George received a number so high that he would not end up enlisting, he said.

Michael said his father did advise against purchasing the 1198 Lisbon St. Shell gas station where he’d started his own career under his father. It was the biggest piece of advice his father gave that he ignored. He said the only reason it worked out was because of the work ethic his father raised him with.

“It was 80-hour work weeks,” Michael said.

Phillip Noe, commander of U.S. Air/Space Force of Northern New England, center, gives the keynote address during a Memorial Day ceremony in 2023 at Veterans Memorial Park in Lewiston. Sitting to his left is WW II veteran Del Gendron. Russ Dillingham/Sun Journal

However, Del wasn’t a hard father or too serious. He was a fun guy who told many jokes, pulled many pranks and fancied a dance with his wife Priscilla, their mother, they said. The man once turned a small profit from a friend by selling him a fire extinguisher he already owned, George said laughing.

“Dad and mom were always the nucleus, making sure that every event, every holiday, the whole family would gather at their house,” George said. Thanksgiving was so much a celebration for the Gendron household that Del and Priscilla wouldn’t stop to eat their own dinners until everyone else was served.

“They would always bring the immediate family together. And, think of it, six kids with their kids, and dad and mom would do all the cooking. Mom would do the serving and dad was a cook in the Navy. That was one of his things, and so he loved cooking. He could cook five or six different courses at once,” he said.

When the Gendron siblings were kids, their father would load them up in the family Cadillac convertible and lure in the several geese and ducks they owned for a trip “up to camp,” Michael said.

“It just shows what type of person he was when it comes to family,” Diane said. “Our neighbors used to think we were crazy. ‘There goes them crazy Gendrons again.’”

Reflecting on the loss of their late father, the siblings said they knew the inevitable was coming, but they also weren’t ready for it.

Diane said one can hardly complain when a man who’s led 97 years of successes, great relationships and model philanthropy for his hometown passes on. Especially when, considering everything throughout his life, he only wants one single thing in death: to be with the love of his life.

“My father was ready to go every day when we went to the cemetery to visit (my mother),” Darling said. “’Mom, I’m one day closer to you,’ he’d say … You can’t really talk about my father or mother without the other, that’s how close they were. Inseparable. They were a partnership and he said that all the time. And he was ready to be with my mother.”