Charles Ellsworth "Chuck" Huntington

1919 - 2017

Charles "Chuck" Ellsworth Huntington, 97
HARPSWELL - Charles "Chuck" Ellsworth Huntington, 97, died Jan. 2, 2017, at his home in Harpswell.
Chuck was born in Boston, Dec. 8, 1919, the son of Rachel (Slocum) Brewer and Ellsworth Huntington.
He attended The Foote School and Hopkins School in New Haven, Conn., and Pomfret School in Pomfret, Conn.
Chuck's father, Ellsworth, traveled in central Asia for the National Geographic Society and the family traveled with him as Ellsworth studied various groups of people around the world, focusing on the ways in which climate affected cultures. As a 10-year-old, Chuck traveled with his family to the Middle East, including a favorite trip to Egypt.
He also spent time as a schoolboy in a boarding school in Switzerland, along with his younger brother and sister, while his parents traveled in Europe.
Chuck's mother, Rachel, was a champion of women's rights and the poor. As a young woman, she worked at the Jane Addams Settlement House in Chicago. As the wife of a Yale faculty member, she was an active volunteer with Planned Parenthood for many years.
Following graduation from Pomfret, Chuck went to the Cranbrook School in Kent, England, on an English Speaking Union scholarship for a post-high school year of study, during which he learned to ride horses, play polo, and shoot. He returned to the States in 1938 and entered Yale University. He earned a B.S. in biology in 1942, then enlisted in the U.S. Navy, where he served until 1946, retiring as a lieutenant commander. He served in various posts in the states and also spent time on Espiritu Santo in the South Pacific, and at the end of the war he spent several months on the
USS Lexington.

In 1946, Chuck returned to Yale University for graduate studies in ornithology, ultimately writing his Ph.D. thesis on grackles under the direction of S. Dillon Ripley.
In 1953, he got his first and only job, teaching evolutionary biology, ecology, and ornithology at Bowdoin College. Chuck was known as an enthusiastic and supportive professor and his early morning bird watching field trips, in all weathers, were legendary.
He also served as director of Kent Island, Bowdoin's ornithological research station in the Bay of Fundy, from 1953 until his retirement in 1986. At Kent Island, he conducted decades of research into the habits of the Leach's storm petrel, a small oceanic bird that nests in burrows on the island. He worked with many eager undergraduate biology students there and at Bowdoin itself and maintained affection for, and pride in, his students. He was always pleased to visit with former students whenever the occasion arose.
In 1956, Chuck met his future wife, Louise Slater, at a biology conference at Wellesley College in Massachusetts. She was a college senior at the time and he was a young instructor at Bowdoin College. He took her on a date to Kent Island and proposed to her there. They were married in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on Dec. 22, 1956. After Louise finished a year of teaching at Northfield School for Girls, she joined Chuck in Harpswell and they lived there ever after. Their first child, George, was born in 1958, followed by Bill in 1960, Katy in 1963, and Sarah on Chuck's 45th birthday, in 1964.
Chuck loved to travel and used sabbatical leave from Bowdoin in 1963 to spend a year on a Guggenheim Fellowship in England with his family at Oxford University's Edward Grey Institute of Field Ornithology. In the summer and early fall of 1970, the family spent several weeks traveling in Europe in a VW camper van and in 1977 they all went to Christchurch, New Zealand, for a year of high school for the kids, ornithology studies for Chuck, making friends for Louise, and traveling for everyone. Travels, and life in general, were inspired and shaped by opportunities to observe birds in their natural habitats, which made for a life lived outdoors much of the time. In 1984, Chuck and Louise traveled again to New Zealand for part of his last sabbatical from Bowdoin.
After his retirement in 1986, Chuck enjoyed continuing his petrel research at Kent Island and in 1996, with Robert Mauck and Ronald Butler, he wrote about his life's work in an article on Leach's storm petrels for The Birds of North America.
In retirement, he also loved working around the family home in Harpswell, tending to an exuberant and ever-growing orchard of fruit trees, traveling (usually bird-inspired) with Louise, and eventually, enjoying a small flock of grandchildren who were his heart's delight.
Chuck loved to be where the people were and took many family photos. These, combined with photos of birds, taken all over the world, make up a collection of over 10,000 slides and other photos.
Among his other professional activities, Chuck helped to found the Natural Resources Council of Maine, and was a devoted board member of the Merrymeeting Audubon Society for many years.
Chuck was predeceased by his brother, George, in 1944; his sister, Anna, in 2014; and his son, George, in 2014.
He is survived by his wife, Louise; daughter-in-law Anne Marie Huntington, of Laramie, Wyo.; son Bill, of Hope; daughter Kate and her husband Bill Gray, of Bowdoinham; and daughter Sarah and her husband Michael Bradley, of Olympia, Wash.; as well as grandchildren Veda and Madrona Huntington-Bradley, Celeste Gray, and Sophia and Samuel Huntington.
The Huntingtons would especially like to thank the therapists and the Hospice team from CHANS who provided so much care and encouragement to Chuck and the family.
A memorial service will be held at the Elijah Kellogg Church, 917 Harpswell Neck Rd., Harpswell, at 2 p.m. Feb. 4, 2017, conducted by the Rev. John D. Carson. Those who wish may leave a note of condolence to the family at: www.brackettfeuneral home.com.

In lieu of flowers, the family
suggests memorial contributions
be sent to:
The Kent Island Fund
Bowdoin College
4100 College Station
Brunswick, ME 04011