Alden P. Stickney, 90, of Rockland, formerly of Southport, died Saturday, April 6, 2013 at Windward Gardens in Camden after a brief illness.

Alden Stickney was born in Providence, R.I. in September, 1922 and spent early years on Long Island, N.Y., moved to Newport, R.I. at age 10, graduated from Rogers High School there, then entered Rhode Island State College (now University of Rhode Island) in 1941 and subsequently entered the U.S. Army Air Force in 1943.

After attending an Air Force technical school for a year, he served as a radar maintenance technician in the 15th Air Force in Italy.  After being demobilized in 1945, he reentered RI State College, graduating in 1948 with a bachelor’s degree in zoology.  In 1949 he entered Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Science, obtaining in 1950 the degree of master of arts in biology.

In 1951, he married his wife of 50-plus years, Mildred Jones of Greene, N.Y. with whom he had two sons; their career took them from Rhode Island to Newburyport, Mass., to Milford, Conn., to Boothbay Harbor and Southport.

Specializing in marine ecology, he had been variously employed at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute during three summers, and later by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Bureau of Commercial Fisheries in studies of clams, by the Bureau of Sport Fisheries and Wildlife in their Atlantic Salmon Investigations, and again by the U.S. Bureau of Commercial Fisheries in research on clams, herring and lobster.  In 1974, after the federal fisheries work in Boothbay Harbor was discontinued, he joined the Maine Department of Marine Resources to undertake research on the environmental physiology of northern shrimp until he retired in 1982.  

After retirement he was an active member of the Boothbay Region Historical Society serving on the board of trustees for several years and was president of the Society for one of them. He was also a charter member of the Southport Planning Board for 30 years, serving as chairman for several of them.

In his retirement years, he undertook the role of an artist, painting chiefly portraits of ships, painting and selling over a hundred of them. He was a prolific photographer, and maintained a collection of several thousand of his photographic prints, negatives and slides.  He was an ardent yachtsman, and built several of the boats he enjoyed, including a cruising sailboat and three rowing boats.  

Predeceased by his wife Mildred, he is survived by two sons, William Stickney of Gloucester, Va., Christopher Stickney of St. George; and four grandchildren.

A memorial service will be held at 2 p.m., June 22, at Maine Coastal Botanical Gardens, 132 Botanical Gardens Drive, Boothbay.    

If so desired, memorial letters and/or donations may be sent to the Boothbay Region Historical Society, P. O. Box 272, Boothbay Harbor, ME 04538.  

Arrangements are in the care of Burpee, Carpenter & Hutchins Funeral Home, 110 Limerock Street, Rockland. To share a memory or condolence with Mr. Stickney’s family, please visit his Book of Memories at www.bchfh.com/.