Longtime neighbors and friends of Lois and Russell Swanson said the Orrington couple were kind and welcoming, and loved to hunt, fish and play cribbage.
The husband and wife, both 89, were found dead in their home at 476 Swetts Pond Road in Orrington around 9 a.m. on Wednesday, according to state police.
A family member discovered the bodies, launching a police investigation. Police so far have declined to provide more information about the circumstances of their deaths.
Regardless of how the couple died, Carrol Harlow, who has known the Swansons since they built their home on Swetts Pond Road some 25 years ago, said he’ll remember the couple as “great people and very friendly.”
“Once you met them once, you felt like you’d known them for a long time,” said Harlow, 84, who previously worked for the Bangor Daily News.
Harlow said he used to hunt and fish with Russell, who went by Russ, and played cribbage with the couple regularly. He also went to their home for dinner often, and noted Russell usually cooked.
Harlow has lived on Swetts Pond Road for 57 years.
Peter Guesner, 63, said he met the Swansons shortly after they moved just down the road from him on Swetts Pond Road. The couple moved to Orrington from New Britain, Connecticut, he said.
Guesner allowed Russell Swanson to hunt on his land with one of his three sons. In exchange, the Swansons would often give him vegetables from their garden or fresh eggs from their chickens, he said. He’d also go to the couple’s home for dinner multiple times a week, he said.
“They treated me like family,” he said. “I’ll miss them terribly.”
The couple had a number of farm animals over the years, Guesner said, including sheep, goats, chickens and the occasional pig.
“Lois loved animals, and Russ would get her whatever she wanted because he loved her,” Guesner said. “They loved each other.”
