GOULD, John (Thomas) 1908-2003

OBITUARY NOTICE—

See index for CA sketch: Born October 22, 1908, in Boston, MA; died of pneumonia August 31, 2003, in Portland, ME. Journalist and author. Gould is best remembered for his many memoirs and his column "Dispatch from the Farm," which centered on his life in small-town Maine. A graduate of Bowdoin College in 1931, Gould settled on a farm in Lisbon, Maine, and began his journalism career at the Brunswick Record. After eight years, he was hired by the Christian Science Monitor, for which he began writing his column, which appeared in the paper for more than sixty years. He was also a regular contributor to the Boston Sunday Post until 1954 and to the Baltimore Evening Sun; and from 1945 to 1951 Gould ran the weekly newspaper Lisbon Enterprise. Gould's popular writings combined observational humor with a slightly curmudgeonly attitude that especially appealed to many New England readers. He wrote numerous books featuring New England characters, including Farmer Takes a Wife (1945), The Parables of Peter Partout (1964), Glass Eyes by the Bottle (1975), No Other Place (1984), It Is Not Now: Tales of Maine (1993), and Tales from Rhapsody Home; or, What They Don't Tell You about Senior Living (2000). Gould's writings made him a local hero, and the state of Maine declared August 17, 2002 to be John Gould Day.

OBITUARIES AND OTHER SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Los Angeles Times, September 4, 2003, p. B12.

New York Times, September 3, 2003, p. A17.