Woman honored for dedication to local cemetery, helping Girl Scouts
By Jamie Azulay
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PORTLAND, Maine (WMTW) — Marianne Chapman has dedicated five decades of service to Girl Scouts. She is a lifetime member who first joined as a child and was later reconnected with the organization while raising her children.
“I got very involved with Girl Scouts, and I was on the Older Girl Task Force,” Chapman said. “We revised the Gold Award experience and the requirements and also the Silver, which is the step down.”
Chapman has mentored generations of girls and young women. She said she thinks of them as daughters. Her husband, Joel, even taught several Girl Scouts how to drive. Together, they lead fundraisers, organized trips to Augusta and Washington, D.C., went camping, and became heavily involved in the preservation of the historic Grand Trunk Cemetery in Portland.
The small plot had gone unnoticed for many years. “It was a disaster. It really — you wouldn’t have had a clue,” Chapman said. She described stones that had been broken and spray-painted.
She said the land was overgrown and had become a place where teens would gather to drink. They found beer cans and bottles littered throughout the cemetery. Chapman said they still find broken glass there today.
She first got involved in the restoration of the site when two of her Girl Scouts took on the project to earn their Gold Awards. Chapman was their mentor at the time, but she developed a passion for the work and the cemetery’s history herself.
Pointing to a row of broken gravestones, she asked, “Isn’t it amazing?” Her research has revealed the cemetery is home to several families and veterans from as far back as the War of 1812 and the American Revolution.
Chapman has helped with the revitalization, research and restoration of Grand Trunk for decades. She does it now alongside a new generation of Girl Scouts. Machigonne Girl Scouts adopted the cemetery as a service project in 2015, and it hosts clean-up events at least twice a year.
“It’s a teachable moment, and that’s important to me,” she said. Chapman’s hard work and dedication were recognized in May with the Juliette Low Spirit Award, named for the founder of Girl Scouts.
A spokesperson for Girl Scouts of Maine described Chapman as a “pillar of the community.” They wrote, “As a former Machigonne leader, Marianne’s troop has a lasting impact with members who continue in leadership roles today.”
They explained the Spirit Award was presented to Chapman to honor her “tireless dedication” and her “exceptional service.” Chapman said she was surprised and overwhelmed when they presented the award at the spring clean-up event.
“I’m not going to be around forever,” she said. “Hopefully, there will be people that carry on.” Chapman and her husband have been granted special permission to be buried at Grand Trunk themselves.
The cemetery can be found at 69 Presumpscot St. in Portland. It sits behind Presumpscot Elementary School.
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