"Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year. He is rich who owns the day, and no one owns the day who allows it to be invaded with fret and anxiety. Finish every day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities, no doubt crept in. Forget them as soon as you can, tomorrow is a new day; begin it well and serenely, with too high a spirit to be cumbered with your old nonsense. This new day is too dear, with its hopes and invitations, to waste a moment on yesterdays."        Ralph Waldo Emerson

Quentin Smart passed quietly into heaven on February 23, 2022 while sitting at his desk tending to business at his home in Fort Kent. He was never one to relax or rest; there was always another woodlot to be cruised, projects to be tackled, and work to be done in the garden. Thus, this is how he lived his life, with vigor and expectation.

Quentin, or Q, was born on September 5, 1936, to Laurence and Ethel Smart in Lincoln, Maine. He learned from them the value of hard work and strove from an early age to make them proud.  When he was thirteen, for instance, he rode the rail car out of Lincoln and worked on the tracks near Greenville for a week at a time all summer. By the time he was in college, he was running woodlots and cutting wood. He was self-reliant, idealistic and deeply connected to the world around him. He found peace in the woods, hard work, and later, in his garden.

Q graduated from Mattanawcook Academy in 1954 after a year at Higgins Classical Institute. He then earned his bachelor's degree at the University of Maine in Agricultural Engineering. During this time, he married Diane Downs of Lincoln Center and started a family. He spent many years working in the woods: buying land, harvesting wood, running crews, and selling pulp to The Great Northern and other mills. Eventually, he purchased Grant Forest Products, Inc. culminating this chapter of his life. He ran this company with his son, Jack, until the early 90's at which time he became busy with a group of inventors securing capital to develop their ideas, from boilers to biometrics.

In 1961, he built his camp on Chesuncook lake so that he could be close to his woods business. He stayed there alone in the winter, and with his young family in the summer. The camp has become the heart of gatherings of children and grandchildren, and his presence will be forever felt and missed there. Many drinks and stories were shared on the porch, and beautiful meals eaten together. The world's troubles melted away in the view up the lake.

In 1994, he married Gabrielle Ezzy of Fort Kent. Together, they enjoyed travels to Hawaii, Jamaica and Italy, canned many vegetables, and enjoyed each other's company at camp and on their beautiful porch, where Gabby was the lucky recipient of many meals and stories.

Quentin is survived by his wife of 28 years, Gabby, and her children David, Rachel, Simone, Philip and Tony, as well as four grandsons. He also leaves behind his children Valerie Clark, her husband Ted, and children Ted and Emily; Quentin Smart II, or Jack, Jill, and his children Jaime, Melissa and Caroline; Sarah Soule and her husband Jay, and her children Lillian and Grace; Andrew Smart, his wife Holly and their daughter, Delaney. He also has four great grandchildren with another on the way.

In the summer of 2021, there was a wedding held on Silver Lake in Lee, where all of Dad's children were together. Souls were mended and hearts came together. God showed great grace to him, and his whole family, as his final months were spent in gratitude, basking in the light of a journey that had come full circle.

"Grace comes into the soul, as the morning sun into the world; first a dawning; then a light; and at last the sun in his full and excellent brightness"        Thomas Adams

At 10 AM Tuesday, March 1st, there will be a prayer service at Lajoie Funeral Home in Fort Kent.

"I love you, too, Dear."