It’s a sad month in Gloucester all around. Ann-Margaret, the FV Lily Jean with Gus Sanfilippo and so many others lost, Merlin Hunt, and now Bruce Tobey and Dave Marsh’s passing. They are all a testament to the uniqueness of our city.
Seems like Bruce was always here, always in government, always would stop and talk to you on the sidewalk. He was the ultimate political Big Shot, but he would take the time, every time, to talk to us Little Shots if you had something to say. He was all about Fishtown. He would call me up if he didn’t like something I’d written and debate the point, once from Florida even, but more often from here. He loved to blab about politics — he was a lifelong student of Gloucester politics and he was pretty fluent in reality, too.
He’d get that engaging look on his face, lock onto your point and dive right in. He knew we were all dreamers here and could relate, even though he had more than one foot planted squarely in reality, having worked at the East Gloucester dehydration plant in high school and college. He served nine years each as mayor and on the City Council, but as the father of four girls and grandpa of 10 active grandtykes, he had plenty of training for mere politicians. And that stretched beyond Gloucester. He chaired or sat on seven state or federal councils and boards which counted on his experience.
Bruce typified what I call the hidden gems in the Gloucester firmament, people like diamonds who sparkled away in their various roughs. Artists, thinkers, writers, fishermen and, yes, even politicians, who thrived here and wouldn’t have it any other way. He worked his best projects behind the scenes — as he did as chairman of the 400+ Committee and way back when he broke the logjam to facilitate the expansion of Blackburn Industrial Park.
As you know, the shrimp table at a reception is usually a magnet for hungry partiers and while conversing at close range with the Tobester at Maritime Gloucester during the 400th, Sefatia, Greg V. and John Bell all hoved into sight of the shrimp pile. Quick, you four, it’s history! Someone take a picture! The last four mayors who had spanned 33 years between them, caught on camera. Never knew what happened to that pic. If anyone has it, please come forward.
Dave Marsh was another Gloucester original. A former Harvard football starter, then naval officer, master sailor and mariner, he was a banker at heart and once president of Gloucester National. But Dave left them to found and run a fish processing and restaurant supply company, then returned to banking to run Cape Ann Bank & Trust where the empty Santander offices now sit. But that bank got a new out-of-town owner (Bank of New England) and they wouldn’t let Dave or his loan committee approve local loans, as if we were all bumpkins. So Dave left and founded a new bank, Gloucester Bank & Trust, down by the Building Center and in the next few years, proceeded to take all the local business away from his old bank, so there!
Then he got an offer he couldn’t refuse and GB&T became Andover Bank. After a year, Dave helped sell it again to TD North! In the meantime, Bank of New England had gone belly up. So there, again!
Dave took me out sailing on his wacky boat, a futuristic F-27 racing trimaran which was more like a flying machine. He was pretty calm as the winds picked us up and threw us wave to wave. For all that wheeling and dealing, Dave was very easygoing. He had a marvelously dry sense of humor. He liked talking about Gloucester business and politics and chuckled a lot. His wife, Louise, always said Dave couldn’t drive by a kid’s lemonade stand without becoming a customer.
So once again, we have come full circle. Special, kind and talented people, diamonds drawn into the Gloucester fabric. We know them so well, we take for granted they’ll always be there. Our leaders, our mentors and our friends. So unique. But now twinkling at us from another direction.