Brooksville
Grace Condon (Ladd) Dillon, 89, died July 23, 2012 at a Blue Hill hospital after a brief illness. She was born March 28, 1923, in Brooksville to Beatrice (Condon) and Crosby Ladd.
She was educated in the schools of Brooksville and South Blue Hill where her aunts were schoolteachers, and graduated from Brooksville High School and the Northern Conservatory of Music in Bangor. She taught music for two years in Greenville, Maine, and one year in Madison, Maine, and then returned to school at the University of Maine, receiving her BS degree in music education in 1948. Grace then moved to the Washington, D.C., area where two of her aunts were living. She taught school in Prince George’s County, Maryland, for three years before working at the Central Intelligence Agency for nine years. In 1961 she met her future husband, Wayne J. Dillon, in Washington, and they were married six weeks later. She and Wayne had many adventures throughout their devoted marriage until his death in 2009. They lived and studied Spanish in Mexico and Arizona and then lived twelve years in and around Fairbanks, Alaska, where Grace worked for the Fairbanks Police Department. Retiring in 1978 to Brooksville, Grace took up the work of the community and her family, caring for her aging aunts and several cousins as well as, finally, her husband. She was a member of the Brooksville United Methodist Church, the WSCS, and the Brooksville Historical Society, as well as a loyal and eager participant in the Thursday lunches at Meals for Me, now Community Cafe, in Brooksville. She and her husband were volunteers for Literacy Volunteers in Bangor, where they forged strong bonds with several of their students in both English and Spanish. If Grace ever met anyone, they became a life-long friend, and she never forgot a birthday, a graduation, a wedding, or a christening.
Grace was predeceased by her parents; her brothers Edmund Ladd and wife Doris, and John Ladd and wife Katherine (Ladd) Martin as well as her thirteen aunts and uncles of Condons-on-the Hill, and her husband. She is survived by seven nieces and nephews; Douglas Ladd, Bradley Ladd, Richard Ladd, and Dolores Ladd Robertson, Basil Ladd, Sharon Ladd Higgins, and Brenda Ladd Sprague, as well as her husband’s many nieces and nephews, and three special cousins; Elizabeth Senter, Darlene Carlson, and Thelma Astbury. She leaves behind many devoted and loyal friends, family, and cousins.
A memorial service for Grace will be held at 3:00 PM on Sunday, August 26, at the South Brooksville Methodist Church with the Rev. David Vandiver officiating.
Those wishing to remember Grace may consider making a contribution to the Brooksville United Methodist Church, c/o Dwight Eaton, 12 Eaton Lane, Brooksville, Maine 04617.
Condolences may be expressed at www.jordanfernald.com