After 35 years, Bisbees depart for the mid-coast

By Emily Adams
www.sunburyexchange.com

    Bill and Elaine Bisbee have relocated from Dover-Foxcroft to mid-coast Maine after serving 35 years of service in health care and the broader community.
    Bill served all 35 years of his career as a physician assistant at Mayo Orthopaedics. He stopped seeing patients there in August. His community service included nine years on the school board of SAD 68 and 10 years as a trustee at Foxcroft Academy.

Elaine and Bill Bisbee

    Elaine, a registered nurse, has been a health educator for the Piscataquis Public Health Council for the last four years and held a number of teaching and nursing positions over the years. She is perhaps best known for a childbirth class she taught for 21 years.
    They relocated to Rockland to be closer to family. Bill’s mother is 88 and lives in Belfast. Elaine’s is 92 and lives in Auburn. It was always the Bisbees’ plan to retire to the mid-coast region in three to five years. A job opportunity in Rockport accelerated the timetable. Bill has joined an orthopaedic group at Pen Bay Medical Center. Elaine will look for something in the field of educating people about wellness. It compliments her interests in naturopathic and homeopathic medicine, integrative nutrition, Reiki and Tai Chi.
    They leave with mixed emotions, they explained in a recent interview. But the move feels “serendipitous,” they say, because, after Bill applied for the job, “everything started fitting into place.” “We trusted the fact that, if it falls into place, then maybe it was time,” says Bill.
    News of their departure was announced in the newsletters of Mayo Regional Hospital and the Dover-Foxcroft Congregational Church. “I’ve been somewhat awed by the number of people that have come up to both me and, I think, to Elaine, too, and just expressed their appreciation,” says Bill of the hugs he has received from people. “It’s quite moving.”
    For 34 of those 35 years, Bill has worked with prominent orthopaedic surgeon Richard Swett, M.D. Bisbee counts it as “a blessing and a real gift” to have been able “to associate with someone who is as wonderful” as Swett.
    Bill’s community service included leadership positions in the Congregational Church. He also did fundraising for the Piscataquis Regional YMCA, Girl Scouts, Boy Scouts and Arcady, when that concert series was in Dover-Foxcroft. He was one of the original board members of the Charlotte White Center. Being a physician assistant gave Bill “more time to devote to family and community than I might have if I had been a physician with the extra responsibilities.”
    Bill was 28 and Elaine was 27 when they moved to Dover-Foxcroft in August of 1978 with an infant daughter. Bill had just completed physician assistant training at Yale University. He was a Dartmouth College undergraduate (1972) and grew up in Belfast. Elaine’s family was from Redding, Conn., vacationed in the Moosehead area, and moved to Winterport in 1967. She graduated from Brewer High School and earned her RN degree in 1972 from the University of Maine.
    “We were readily accepted from the first time we came into town,” recalls Bill. “From the moment we came in they had a community gathering within a few months.”
    It was Elaine who wanted to settle in northern New England. “I like the quiet and I like the lakes and the outdoors.” This area provided opportunities for them to fly fish, take scenic walks and go kayaking. It was also “a great place to raise our kids,” she says.
    Kristen, 35 and married, is an air-quality engineer for CDM Smith in Cambridge, Mass. Bryanne, 32 and married, is an occupational therapist with the Ellsworth office of Gentiva Health Services. Dana, 28, is a middle school Spanish teacher in Durham. Kristen now has a son and the Bisbees look forward to grandparenting every chance they get.