Everett P. Pope - Later Life

Later Life

After his military service, Pope began a career as a banker. He was president of the Workmen's Co-operative Bank in Boston, Massachusetts, for more than 25 years beginning in 1953. At the start of his tenure, he was the youngest bank president in New England at age 34. He worked in savings and loans and supported the federal student loan program, serving in 1982 as the first Chairman of the Board of Massachusetts Higher Education Assistance Corporation. After retiring in 1983, he returned to Brunswick, Maine, and lived near his alma mater, Bowdoin College.

He was active on Bowdoin's governing boards for 27 years, from 1961 to 1988, serving as president of the board of overseers and chair of the board of trustees. He established the Pope Scholarship Fund in the 1980s and, with other Bowdoin alumni, established the Haldane Cup, an award presented to a senior who demonstrates the leadership and character of Marine Corps Captain Andrew Haldane. Haldane, who was killed in the Battle of Peleliu, was the captain of the 1940 Bowdoin football team and a classmate of Pope. In 1987, the school awarded Pope an honorary Doctor of Laws degree.

Pope and his wife Eleanor lived on Amelia Island in Florida and on Great Pond in Belgrade Lakes, Maine, before failing health spurred them to return to the midcoast area of Maine to be nearer their sons. The couple entered the Hill House assisted-living facility in Bath in September 2008. His wife died there in January 2009, and Pope himself died six months later, on the morning of his 90th birthday. Everett and Eleanor Pope were cremated and, on September 15, 2009, buried together in Arlington National Cemetery.