Gillilan Dies In A Logging Accident

Gillilan dies in logging accident

Published: Saturday, August 27, 2005

By Erica Jacobson
Free Press Staff Writer

Things just happened if Cleon Gillilan was around.

Driveways and parking lots were plowed in the wee hours of the morning so neighbors could leave on time for work. Workplace pipes and boilers were repaired even though the task was hardly in Gillilan's job description. Grandchildren were taught how to collect sap buckets.

Gillilan did it all quietly and often without being asked, family and friends recalled Friday. And he rarely accepted more than a few dollars for any task, whether it was fixing a radiator or sharing produce from his vegetable garden.

The 83-year-old Fletcher sugarmaker was found unconscious in his sugarbush Monday evening after apparently being hit in the head by a falling dead tree he had cut for firewood. Gillilan died Wednesday at Fletcher Allen Health Care of his injuries.

"It was a tragic accident," said Gillilan family friend, Gary Gaudette. "The Lord doesn't put too many people on earth like Cleon." A life-long resident of Fletcher and the patriarch of a four-generation maple sugaringfamily, Gillilan had been retired from Leader Evaporator for almost 20 years. Gaudette, president the St. Albans sugaring supply company, said Gillilan was an invaluable employee during his decades at Leader.

"He was one of those guys that could do anything," Gaudette said. "He could take a flat sheet of stainless steel or iron and make whatever you needed out of it."

The maple syrup produced by Gillilan at his family's sugarhouse was legendary, said Larry Myott of Ferrisburgh, the executive secretary of the International Maple Syrup Institute.

"He was a top-quality sugarmaker who could always be counted on to enter the top prize-winning syrup in any contest," Myott said. "He was what I would call a sugarmaker par excellence.

"And he was a pretty nice guy."

Myott said Gillilan helped out at nearly every festival in the area from the Vermont Maple Festival in St. Albans to the Franklin County Field Days in Highgate to the Champlain Valley Fair in Essex Junction, where Myott and chairman of the Franklin County Sugarmakers Association, Carolyn Perley, were setting up the sugarhouse Friday. It was a chore, along with frosting doughnuts and making maple milkshakes, that Gillilan always did without fail and without pay, Perley said.

"We're just going to miss him," Perley said, "just like losing a wheel off of your car."

Around Fletcher, Gillilan's death spurred stories of his legendary generosity, love of baseball and the sight of his familiar blue Ford tractor driving around town no matter the season.

Diane Dayvie, owner of the Fletcher General Store, said Gillilan was a near-daily visitor to her shop, picking up groceries and maple cookies shaped like maple leaves. Gillilan would usually leave something extra behind on his trips, Dayvie said, and a squash from Gillilan's garden was part of her dinner Thursday night.

"He was a very, very special man," Dayvie said.

Roger Geno had been a neighbor of Gillilan's for about 30 years and the beneficiary of Gillilan's wintertime kindness.

"He'd plow you out whether you wanted it or not," Geno said. "You'd almost have to sit on him to take any pay for it.

"He just enjoyed doing it."

Bruce Gillilan, one of Cleon Gillilan's sons, said his father led the family as well as the community with a quiet, strong example of sharing what you didn't need, doing what needed to be done and making his family a priority. Bruce Gillilan said he can remember being a young boy and waiting with a group of neighborhood kids for his father to get home from work and play ball.

"He'd come out and be our designated pitcher," Bruce Gillilan said, "just so we could have a two-on-two game of baseball.

"I never needed a role model, he was right there."
Contact Erica Jacobson at 660-1843 or ejacobso@bfp.burlingtonfreepress.com.