KENNEBUNKPORT, Maine — Donald G. Curry, who devoted 70 years of his life to Seashore Trolley Museum in Kennebunkport, Maine, ultimately serving as its restoration manager, died June 9 at the age of 87.
Curry was recognized as a leading authority on streetcar and interurban restoration. In 2014, he was honored with a lifetime achievement award for his work by the Association of Tourist Railroads and Railway Museums (now the HeritageRail Alliance). His longtime contributions to Seashore led the museum’s board to name its shop building the Donald G. Curry Town House Shop in 2017.
Curry became interested in railways and trolleys at a young age, and as a student at Boston’s Northeastern University made his first visit to Seashore in 1953. At that time, the museum was little more than a section of track with a number of trolleys in varying condition lined up in the order they had arrived at the site.
The next year, he became the museum’s first paid employee. Curry freely admitted that much of his knowledge and skills were the result of trial and error. Over the years, especially after the museum’s shop was built in 1969, Curry taught himself to operate machines and tools that allowed the shop to reproduce almost any wooden part, and trained others as well.
Curry was a music teacher at nearby Cape Elizabeth High School, which allowed him to work at Seashore full time through the summers. He was able to hire, train and mentor high school students, a number of whom are still Seashore members today. Paul Murray, of Matinicus, Maine, remembers Curry fondly: “He was a good part of my formative years, both at CEHS and Seashore.”
In addition to his hands-on restoration work on much of Seashore’s fleet, Curry was also a prolific writer. He developed Seashore’s operator training program, which provided manuals, mandatory training and testing. He also worked hard to develop a network of contacts through the trolley museum world, coordinating joint purchases of hard-to-find materials and parts.
Between 1989 and 1997, Curry split time between serving as shop foreman and museum director, focusing in the latter role community outreach and events. He returned to full-time work in the restoration shop in 1998, retiring from that position in 2017. Still, he continued to volunteer in the shop; he had worked there on June 1, the day he suffered the stroke that preceded his passing.
The museum will honor Curry during its 2023 Members Day on Aug. 19, 2023.
Donald was a guru to trolley restoration specialists. He showed everybody how to repair and restore old trolleys with the assets we had available back in the day.
Donald and his team of helpers did excellent work with minimal resources. People from other museums would go to Seashore, watch (and help) Donald and then take what they leaned home to their own museums.