Item 102995 info
Maine Historic Preservation Commission
Lucia M. Cormier was the first woman, and the first Franco-American, to serve as Portland’s Custom Collector and the last Collector appointed by a United States President. She served from 1960 to 1970. Born at Rumford in 1909, the daughter of David and Adell Goguen, Cormier graduated from St. Stephens High School in her home town, earned a BA from the College of St. Elizabeth, Morristown, NJ (1936) and an MA from Columbia (1940).
A language teacher at her old high school, Cormier was elected to the Maine legislature in 1943 and served six terms up until 1960. She was part of a new generation of women and of liberal Democrats reviving the party in the Post-War era. Senator Edmund S. Muskie wrote “Her character and wisdom contributed mightily to the emergence of our Democratic party.”
In 1945, Cormier opened a successful bookstore and with a deep involvement in labor and education issues, and ran against Senator Margaret Chase Smith. The two appeared on the cover of Time magazine, September 5, 1960.
Though Senator Smith prevailed, President John F. Kennedy appointed Cormier Collector in 1960, a job she held for ten years. In the final year, her job title was changed from Collector to District Director, a title she kept until her retirement in 1974. In both capacities she did a great deal to call attention to the historic value of the Custom House, telling reporter Bob Niss of the Portland Evening Express, May 5, 1973, “I’m surprised by people who’ve lived in Portland all their lives and stop by on business and say how they never realized how beautiful the building was.”
In the gentle fade out of Collectors and grand Custom Houses, Lucia M. Cormier proved the perfect transitional leader. On May 17, 1973, the building was listed on the National Register of Historical Places. Lucia Cormier retired as District Director in 1974, dying at Holly Hill nursing home in Daytona Beach, Florida on January 27, 1993.
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