Remarkable Sherm Doody meets with tragic Death

 This article (in part) appeared on the front page of the Aroostook Republican on Jan. 17, 1963 (parts of this story were contributed by George Whitneck.     When he wasn’t in the woods, Sherm Doody liked to walk to town. In fact the only day he didn’t recall coming into Caribou was Monday, Dec. 17, 1894, the date of the arrival of the first Bangor and Aroostook construction train. About that particular day, Sherm didn’t “rightly remember.”
    He enjoyed his “trips to town” summer or winter and he made so many friends “passing the time: that they were countless.”
    One of Caribou’s grand old men, widely known for his home-spun humor and poetry, 87-year-old Sherm was walking home Tuesday afternoon when he was struck by a car on the Access Highway,
    The man who wrote poems about his birth in a log hut on the banks of the Madawaska Stream, died almost instantly. The accident occurred in the darkness of 5:15 p.m.
     A direct  descendant of David Bubar, one of the 29, “Treaty Lot,” settlers on Eaton Grant who shaved shingles for Alexander Cochran’s grist mill on the Caribou Stream, Doody was born April 29, 1875. He was the son of John and Olive Wright Doody. He attended Caribou schools and on Oct. 17, 1908, married Nellie M. Bubar, who survives him. He had made his home on the Access Highway for many years.
    Other survivors are six sons, Sherman Jr.  of  Boston; George, Caribou; Phillip, Lowell, Mass.; Forest, Caribou; Harold, Hartford, Conn.; and Beecher of Worcester, Mass.; two daughters, Mrs. Howard Greenwood of Worcester, Mass., and Mrs. Loropo Stubbs of Caribou; two brothers, Fred of Illinois and Ray of Caribou; 18 grandchildren and nine great-grandchildren.
    Sherman  Doody did not seek work, nor did he shun it, and during the winter season when he “went to the woods,” with Del Wright’s heavy team for S.W. Collins and Son, he was very apt to return in March when the camp “broke up.” With his tattered coat pockets stuffed with poems telling about the woods boss, the choppers, the teamsters, the camp cook and cookee, many of which were published by the Republican.
    Sherm’s arrangement in the old days with Lyman Pendell was rather a unique one. Pendell would print 100 or more copies of Sherm’s poems on a Monday, which Sherm sold about town until the Republican came out on Thursday with his poem.
    His heart always was brimming over with love of his fellow men, but the sad fact, said one of his friends, was that he never realized his greatness, nor did the townspeople among whom he moved so meekly.
    Doody, who had the remarkable faculty, even in his advanced years, of standing before a dinner meting and reciting dozens of his poems with no more cue than their titles, once penned the following about his ancestor, David Bubar:
He fished, trapped and hunted
Worked now and then
always contented
And a giant among men.
He was as fearless as a lion
Strong as an ox,
Meek as a rabbit.
Shrewd as a fox.
He had no equal as an axeman
Felling trees was just fun,
He could travel three days without eating,
Or eat six meals in one.