ALFRED- Clarence Donald “Skip” Beal died at home in Alfred, Maine at the age of 92 on May
17th, 2025, while being cared for by his five children.
He was born in Newburyport, Massachusetts on May 8th, 1933 to Clarence and Edith
Beal, and grew up in Jonesport, Maine. After graduating high school in 1950, he
enlisted in the Air Force at age 17 and was stationed in Japan during the Korean War as
a radar technician. After the war, he enrolled at the University of Maine in Bangor, and
married Elaine Farren of Columbia, Maine in the summer of 1957. They soon had their
daughter Marilyn and moved to Syracuse, New York where Skip continued his studies at
Syracuse University. After graduating with a degree in engineering, he began work as
an electrical engineer, and in time moved into program management, working for Pan
Am, General Electric, RCA, Honeywell and others. Later in life, he earned an MBA at
Lesley College in Boston.
Skip Beal was a devoted husband and father who worked hard to support his family.
After work, he pitched in to help with the kids (sometimes scrubbing four at a time in the
bathtub), made dinner on weekends, repaired cars, appliances, TVs, toasters, and lawn
mowers; if it was broken, he fixed it. He taught his children to swim, shoot hoops, ride
bikes, drive a car, skate, catch and throw a ball, to know the value of a dollar, and the
importance of hard work. He was a Boston sports fan and loved the Celtics in particular.
When he retired, he took up golf and preferred to play alone, though sometimes Elaine
would join him and drive the cart. He said he had the prettiest caddy golfers had ever
seen. When Elaine died in 2022, Skip’s world got smaller. She was not only his beloved
wife; she was his closest friend. He was resilient as always, but missed her enormously.
In his final years, he often reminisced about his childhood in the tightly-knit fishing
community of Jonesport, Maine. Many of his memories were of time spent with his
father as a boy. There were stories of fishing for lobsters and pulling the traps by hand,
or accompanying his father on his trips through northern Maine as a traveling salesman.
He told of going into the forest to cut trees for firewood, and riding the logs as they were
dragged out of the woods by a horse led by his father. He was a link to a world that is
lost to us now.
Skip was often seen as a serious man, which he was, but the family also knew his
goofy, funny side. When his kids were little, during bath time he would pretend to chase
mice out of their hair, tickling them while chasing the phantom creatures down their
arms and back. He could be hilarious. On long drives he would use his “powerful sniffer”
to follow the scent and guide the family to their destination. Even in his final days, he
retained his sense of humor, flirting with nurses, teasing, and making his children laugh.
Clarence “Skip” Beal was predeceased by his sisters Marilyn Beal and Barbara
Edmunds, and by his brother Melrose Beal. He is survived by brothers David Beal,
Donald Beal, and sister Joanie Smith; by his children Marilyn Beal and partner Al Ladd,
Donald Beal and his wife Khristine Hopkins, Cathy Wells and her husband Tony Wells,
Stephen Beal, and Allison Walls and her husband George Walls; by his eight
grandchildren Maximillian Beal, Tom Beal, Robert Beal, Michael Beal, Christopher
Wells, Stephen Wells, Alex Walls, Carter Walls; and by his great-grandson, Mason
James Beal.
A private service will be held at the Greenwood Cemetery in Jonesport Maine at a later
date.
Please consider making a contribution in his name to the Brittany Alley Estes memorial
scholarship, c/o Camden National Bank, 51 Main Street, Jonesport, Maine 04649.
Arrangements have been entrusted to Chad E. Poitras Cremation and Funeral Service, East Waterboro, www.mainefuneral.com
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