Christopher Merritt Kennedy, of Damariscotta, died early the morning of Feb. 3 after a long and wonderful life and a short illness, surrounded by family and friends.
Chris was born in 1932 in Brooklyn, N.Y. to John Kennedy, a banker, and Louise Merritt. He got into enormous trouble as a young boy for carving a divot into their Grand Avenue brownstone with a pocketknife he had been given, a mark the building still bears.
A lifelong love of airplanes and automobiles led to an engineering scholarship at Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania, where he often said he first felt truly at home. At Swarthmore he met Jane MacLean Walker and they married in 1954 the day after Christmas while Chris was on leave from the U.S. Army.
After his military service they moved to Michigan, where he began a career as an engineer with the Chrysler Corporation. At Chrysler he ran the company’s suspension design department, became an expert on automobile tires, rolled a Volkswagen Beetle in a handling test at the Chrysler proving grounds with a vice-president in the passenger seat, worked on Richard Petty’s NASCAR team, tuned an open-wheel car for the Indianapolis 500, designed and built race cars on the side, and helped secure the Congressional loan guarantees that saved the company in the 1970s. Of all of it, he was proudest that as Chrysler’s lead engineer in the then-nascent field of automobile safety, he played a central role in the national effort to mandate the use of safety belts, a step that has since saved tens of thousand of lives.
An introduction to Maine through Jane’s family summerhouse on MacMahan Island in the Sheepscot River led to a deep love of the state. When Chris retired from Chrysler in the mid-1980s, he and Jane moved first to Newcastle and then to a house they designed and built on the Damariscotta River. His life in Damariscotta was active, engaged, and warm; he served as president of the board of the Round Top Center for the Arts, helped raise funds for the construction of the new Skidompha Public Library, became an active parishioner at St. Andrews Church, was a member of the ROMEO lunch group (Retired Old Men Eating Out), and was amazed and delighted by his and Jane’s large, vital, and always growing group of loving friends.
In Chris’s final battle with prostate cancer, he was attended by his younger daughter, Martha, a Ph.D. nurse practitioner at Johns Hopkins Hospital, and a remarkable group of devoted caregivers, especially Bill Burleson, Dory Hart, and Kelsey Chute. With him and Jane, were their daughter Betsy Massanek, her husband Gary, grandchildren Alex and Geoff, and their son David and his partner Alison Johns.
Chris loved his family, his friends, clear and honest thinking, the family’s many dogs and cats, champagne, salt water, designing and flying model airplanes, Formula 1 racing, reading history, roast beef, travel, cars, banjo music, Swarthmore, his home’s lovely view of the Damariscotta River, his niece Heather’s singing, toys that fly and/or shoot, giving the perfect gift at Christmas, Pete Seeger, the stopwatch Jane gave him as a wedding present, and the everyday wonder that he saw and helped others see in the world. In his final days, he also developed an astonishing enthusiasm for ice cream with chocolate sauce.
Memorial service 2 p.m., Sat., Feb. 16 at St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church in Newcastle.
In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the Skidompha Public Library, PO Box 70, Damariscotta 04543; or Miles & St. Andrews Home Health & Hospice, c/o Development Office, 35 Miles St., Damariscotta 04543.
Condolences, and messages for the family, may be expressed by visiting www.StrongHancock.com.
Arrangements are under the direction and care of the Strong-Hancock Funeral Home, 612 Main St., Damariscotta.
