Ruel W Whitcomb

RUEL WHITNEY WHITCOMB, 49, died at his home in Clinton, CT, on July 17, 2015. He was born in Berlin, NH, on January 12, 1966. He lived in Clinton from the age of four, and graduated from the The Morgan School. While a high school student at Morgan, he spent a summer abroad living with family friends in Norway, and he also participated in a “Seamester at Sea” voyage on the Schooner Harvey Gamage, during which he sailed from the Caribbean to Connecticut. After graduating from Morgan he completed truck driving school, obtained his commercial transport license, and commenced his career as a professional driver with Berkshire Petroleum of Branford, CT, and subsequently with Tuxis Ohr’s Fuel of Meriden, CT.

Ruel is survived by his parents, Eben Morrison Whitcomb Jr. and Shirley Litchfield Whitcomb of Clinton, CT; his brother Eben Morrison Whitcomb III and his companion Belinda Jones of Westbrook, CT; his brother Louis Litchfield Whitcomb and his wife Jennifer Forrence of Baltimore, MD; his companion Shea DeCesare and her daughters Caitlin DeCesare and Megan Reilly Falcone, of Clinton, CT; and by many cousins, aunts, uncles, and extended family.

Ruel was a talented athlete as a youth, receiving numerous awards at the Abraham Pierson and Jared Eliot schools. He was a very loving, extremely kind hearted person; a generous person to family, friends, neighbors, and co-workers. He had a lifelong love of animals. He excelled in his profession and was known for his skills in piloting large commercial vehicles, and his encyclopedic knowledge of highway and byway travel in Connecticut and New England. He will be greatly missed by his family, friends, and professional colleagues.

Ruel liked a poem, entitled Requiem, that Robert Louis Stevenson composed for his own obituary, which we quote here in fond memory:

“Under the wide and starry sky

Dig the grave and let me lie:

Glad did I live and gladly die,

And I laid me down with a will.

This be the verse you grave for me:

Here he lies where he longed to be;

Home is the sailor, home from sea,

And the hunter home from the hill.”

There will be a private memorial service at the family plot in Ellsworth, ME.