“What I liked best and will miss the most will be my co-workers at Wiscasset’s highway department,” said Steve Christiansen following his recent retirement. He has worked under three different town managers and three different public works directors in his seven years with the town crew.

Working for his hometown was a second career for Christiansen. He was previously employed aat Maine Yankee, working at the former nuclear plant for 30 years. “I started in 1974, right after I graduated from Wiscasset High School; first in the plant’s maintenance department and later becoming a purchasing agent until I retired from there in 2004 during the plant’s decommissioning.”

“It was Greg Griffin who hired me to work for the town. He was serving as road commissioner at the time and asked if I’d help mow the town’s cemeteries and town common for the summer. I liked being outdoors and it was good exercise,” he said. “I was fortunate because my entire working career was right here in Wiscasset where I was raised and have called my home all my life.”

The following year, Christiansen took on the custodial duties at the municipal building. “They actually had me working 20 hours there, and 20 hours down at the town garage. Eventually, I transitioned full-time to the town’s highway department.”

A few years ago, Wiscasset Newspaper photographed Christiansen repairing a broken gravestone in the Ancient Cemetery on Federal Street. “I  really enjoyed doing that kind of thing because a lot of my ancestors are buried there,” he said.

“My mother could trace her family roots clear back to 1735, almost to the time when the town of Wiscasset was first settled. Capt. William Henry Clark, my great-great-great-grandfather, is buried in Greenlawn Cemetery on Rumerill Road. He was a veteran of the Civil War and bought the town clock and had it placed in the tower in the building on Fort Hill Street. In Capt. Clark’s time, the building was used as a church by the Methodists as well as the Episcopalians,” said Christiansen.

“Another early ancestor of mine was William Groves. He came to Wiscasset in the mid-18th century from somewhere down in New Hampshire. If my memory serves me right, he married a member of the Foye family. The Foyes were another of the area’s first settlers and some of their descendants still live in the area.”

Christiansen loves delving back into Wiscasset’s colorful past and can often be found in the archives room of Wiscasset Public Library pouring through old public records and genealogy. Since 1963, he has lived in the modest brick home on Willow Lane where he grew up.

“Before my folks moved here, we lived on Federal Street right next door to the Sunken Garden.  My family owned that property for five generations. There’s an antique business there now, but after my folks sold it, the Tarboxes lived there. Mrs. Tarbox, who everybody called Choppy, had a small yarn shop in the front of the house she called “The House and Barn.”

Christiansen said now that he is retired for the second time, he might set out to document his family history. He has a good deal of Wiscasset memorabilia he has collected to sort through as well.

“I’ll miss the guys at the town garage and I’ll miss talking to the people I’d see downtown while I was working. I’ll be turning 65 next year. I think maybe it might be time to retire.”