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Secrets Of A Wonderful Life Sharing Memories With Max Dumas

Max spends his days reading, visiting with people and holding his adored cat.
photo by provided
Max spends his days reading, visiting with people and holding his adored cat.
Max and Mary Dumas always had time for family and loved every minute with their grandchildren.
photo by provided
Max and Mary Dumas always had time for family and loved every minute with their grandchildren.
Married in June of 1946, Max and Mary Dumas were together for 57 years until her death. Their family was the center of their world!
photo by provided
Married in June of 1946, Max and Mary Dumas were together for 57 years until her death. Their family was the center of their world!
Max in uniform after returning home from WWII for Christmas 1945.
photo by provided
Max in uniform after returning home from WWII for Christmas 1945.
From left to right the Dumas family included Claire, Marilyn, Max, Mary, Cathy and Michael. Today's count of grandchildren and great-grandchildren keeps the family line strong and Max with lots of stories to share to the next generation.
photo by provided
From left to right the Dumas family included Claire, Marilyn, Max, Mary, Cathy and Michael. Today's count of grandchildren and great-grandchildren keeps the family line strong and Max with lots of stories to share to the next generation.

Tuesday July 19, 2016

By Cookie Steponaitis

“The more I sit here and I go back over the times in my life, I honestly can’t think of anything I’d like to change,” shared ninety three years young Max Dumas sitting in his Bristol home. Looking back on his past Dumas shared memories of family, work, war and the beauty of living in a place where people have your back. Max was born in Gaysville in 1923 and grew up in a loving family with two brothers and one sister. “I was the baby,” grinned Dumas. “Gaysville is a part of Stockbridge for those who have not heard of it and even though it was the Great Depression there was work in town. One factory we had made shades and many of the people were in lumber. My father was a lumberman and so were his brothers. I remember my father working sixty hours a week for $12.00 and we felt fortunate he had a full time job. I truly had a wonderful set of parents and family.”
    Max’s father and one brother went to work for Johnson Lumber Company in Bristol after moving to Lincoln in 1930. “My oldest brother really wanted to be a farmer,” remembered Dumas. “He moved and was able to do that.” Dumas attended the South Lincoln one room school, liked Mathematics above all of the subjects and talked in depth about learning to work as a team and helping out other kids in the classes. Dumas worked at the Park Filling Station while he was in high school, graduated in 1941 and began his career in Springfield working for a company that made parts for the war effort.  It was February 16, 1943 when Dumas found himself in the U.S. Army and followed his brother Hubert into the war. Hubert was in the Seventh Army Battalion and was wounded three separate times during the conflict. “And I came home without a scratch,” pondered Max. “It really makes you wonder.”
    Dumas got a quick lesson in American geography and being mobile by spending the first eight months of his military service receiving training at a variety of bases including Fort Bragg, North Carolina, Camp Shelby, Mississippi, Fort Harrison, Montana and Fort Belvoir, Virginia emerging as a Construction Engineer. During a twenty-eight month stint in the European Conflict, Dumas and his unit built water towers, roads, bridges, airports and Nissan huts in England, France, Holland, Belgium and Germany. “We basically went from one side of the conflict to the other,” remarked Max Dumas. “We ended up in Berlin.” Never knowing where the company would be sent, Dumas remarked that the build site might be a new build, repair of a bombed structure or a mixture of both. Some particularly tough and large builds included a railroad in Wessel, Germany and the Remagen Bridge in Germany spanning the Rhine River which was damaged during a battle in 1945. Its reconstruction was crucial to the Allies advance to Berlin. “There were six mobile construction companies stationed in Europe,” shared Dumas. “We were always ready to move out when orders came and we had our own machinery and heavy equipment. Once I was in port getting ready to unload our equipment and I heard my name being called. It was my brother. We actually crossed paths three times during the war years. That time taught me a lot about my own skills and ability. I had to learn to trust someone completely and to know they would have my back.”
    Max Dumas came home Christmas 1945, was looking for a job and took a position working in Connecticut making tools. There happened to be in the same shop a young woman who he had met before the war. Mary Lana was also working with machinery and Max shared, “I used to love to watch her work on machinery. It was fascinating.” The couple only dated a few months before tying the knot and was married in June 1946. While Max will admit he probably was staring at Mary more than the machinery, he pauses to get serious for a minute. “People today always look at divorce as a way to see if it is greener on the other side of the fence. It is not. Marriage takes work and love takes time to develop and bloom into what it can really be.”
    Like many of the young couples after the end of WWII, both partners worked outside the home at first before starting a family. After being laid off from the company in Connecticut the couple returned to the Bristol area and lived with family for a bit while they got their start.  There was no shortage of work available and Max Dumas continued a love affair with working and with people that would last long into his 80’s. He worked for Brush Motors and at the Johnson Lumber Company as a mechanic until fate intervened.  “I took the test for the Postal Service,” remarked Dumas. “I got the job of a substitute carrier and I simply loved it. After working in the office for a few years I got a rural route and carried mail in the five towns of Bristol, New Haven, Monkton, Starksboro and Lincoln for thirty years. My route had 500 stops and covered seventy-five miles. In thirty years I missed one day and that was due to a heck of a blizzard. No mail moved that day.”
    Delivering letters, 300 Burlington Free Press and magazines every day, Dumas earned a reputation of being as predictable as a fine time piece. During his tenure his deliveries were never more than five to ten minutes off each day and that was because someone invited him in for a coffee and he could not resist visiting. “After a coffee stop it was pedal to the metal,” grinned Max. “I kind of sat in the middle of the front seat and drove and I had quite a system down.” Dumas officially retired after thirty years in the Post Office and settled in for about five weeks before that was enough of being retired. Within a few days he began a fifteen year career with Middlebury Vending which Max refers to as a, “dream job because every day you are going places and meeting people.” Home for two days after that career a local friend got Dumas to drive the Disabled Veterans Van from Burlington, Vermont to White River Junction for veterans and their appointments. “Then they got the crazy idea that while those veterans were in their appointments, I could then drive to Bennington to the Retired Soldiers Home and pick those men up and then back to Bennington and back to Burlington all in one day.” After 500 miles a day for two years it was too much. While stepping back from the van work Dumas then went on delivering parts for the Champlain Valley Plumbing and Heating  until he reached his late 80’s.
    All the while family was the center point of Dumas’s life. Children Claire, Marilyn, Michael and Cathy were all raised at home and Mary Dumas stayed home with the children until they went to school. Then she simply followed the kids into the school district and worked for schools until her last one graduated. From his own family to the Bristol community he calls home, Dumas remarked that people always had each other’s back and were there in times of celebration but also in times of need. “My brother bought a place under the GI Bill when he came home from the war,” explained Dumas. “He was having a hard time making the payments and needed a little money. I stopped at one of my friend’s house who was on my mail route and explained that I needed to borrow a bit of money. With a handshake he agreed and told me to stop by on my route that day and he gave it to me. While I paid back every penny he told me not to worry if I couldn’t.”
    What are the secrets to a wonderful life? To hear it explained by Max Dumas it is really quite simple. Start with family, add work, multiply by the joy of meeting people and talking with them and then repeat. For special occasions mix in friends, community and simply be happy with that and not need too much more. It has worked for Max Dumas and his family too. While the current political debates and scenarios in Washington gave Dumas many thoughts to share and ideas to put forth, it kept coming back to the lessons he learned in life that were repeated over time. Look after each other, take care of America first and always remember that freedom is not a gift.” The Valley Voice celebrates the life of Max Dumas and all of his generation for their vitality, commitment and unfailing belief that this is indeed a wonderful life and a wonderful place to call home.


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