Richard O. Jordan ’36 died on February 6, 2011, in Brunswick, Maine.
He was born on January 3, 1914, in Charleston, W.V., the son of Ivory C. Jordan, Bowdoin Class of 1891. He prepared for college at Deering High School and was a member of Chi Psi fraternity at Bowdoin, where he graduated with honors in philosophy. He served to lieutenant junior grade at the Washington, D.C., headquarters of the Coast Guard from 1943 to 1946. He also served as Assistant Aids to Navigation officers in charge of Loran and radar beacon stations on sea duty in the North Atlantic. He married his first wife, Frances Gulliver, in 1945. For 36 years he worked as a senior manager at the American Mutual Liability Insurance Company in Massachusetts, where he introduced computer programming to the underwriting process. In 1967 he married Dora Comee. In retirement, he and his wife delivered Meals on Wheels for more than 20 years, and their volunteer leadership at The 55 Plus Center was celebrated with the naming of Jordan-Wilson Hall in the former St. Charles Borromeo Church. He also was honored by Mid Coast Hospital for doing the bookkeeping and financial reporting at Lifeline for 19 years. He served on the financial committee of Respite Care for nine years, on the board of Topsham’s Riverview Cemetery for more than 12 years, and volunteered from 1984 to 1989 for The Campaign for Bowdoin. He was a hiker, canoeist, mapmaker, and sailor. A highlight of his many adventures was piloting down the Mississippi River with a lifelong friend in their two-masted Cape dory. Jordan Falls was named for him in recognition of his extensive mapping of the Josephine Newman Sanctuary. His mathematical skills were remarkable; at the age of 96 he accurately squared a three-digit number in his head in less than a minute, and his favorite pastime was programming his computer to solve complex mathematical problems. Perhaps his greatest joy was observing the birds and the seasons at Merrymeeting Bay at his wife’s 80-year- old duck-hunting camp. He is survived by his wife of more than 43 years, Dora Comee Jordan; a daughter, Cheryl Jordan; a son, Bruce Jordan ’69; and four grandchildren.