Brewster - Ralph Owen Brewster (1888-1961)

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Brewster - Ralph Owen Brewster (1888-1961)

Ralph Owen Brewster (1888-1961) was born on February 22, 1888 to William Edmund Brewster, a member of the Maine House of Representatives, and Carrie S. (Bridges) Brewster in Dexter, Maine. He preferred to simply be known as Owen Brewster. Owen graduated summa cum laude from Bowdoin College in 1909, a member of the Phi Beta Kappa Society and Delta Kappa Epsilon. From 1909 to 1910, Brewster was the principal of Castine High School, and then attended Harvard Law School, graduating in 1913. Owen married Dorothy Foss (1889-1971), daughter of Charles S. Foss and Cora (Macy) Foss on April 20, 1915.

A direct lineal descendant of both Love Brewster, a passenger aboard the Mayflower and a founder of the town of Bridgewater, Massachusetts; and of Elder William Brewster, the Pilgrim colonist leader and spiritual elder of the Plymouth Colony, and passenger aboard the Mayflower and one of the signers of the Mayflower Compact, Owen was a Republican, was solidly conservative and a close confidant of Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin. From 1915 to 1923, he was a member of the Portland School Committee. From 1914 to 1925, Brewster was a lawyer for the Chapman and Brewster law firm in Portland.

Owen Brewster was the 54th Governor of Maine, serving from January 7, 1925 to January 2, 1929, and a Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Maine's 3rd district from January 3, 1935 to January 3, 1941. When he spoke at the awards ceremony for the Hinckley company he was a United States Senator from Maine, serving from January 3, 1941 to December 31, 1952.

Ralph Owen Brewster died on December 25, 1961, at the age of 73, in Brookline, Massachusetts.