Shapleigh Chandler Drisko (1877-1938)

From the Maine legislature composite portrait of 1931.

   A three-term Maine state representative who was first elected in 1930, Shapleigh Chandler Drisko was a farmer and lumberman in Washington County who held a variety of local offices during his life, including school board member, selectman, and tax assessor. The son of Joseph Whitney Drisko and the former Isabel Frances Farnsworth, Shapleigh Drisko was born in Jonesboro, Maine on February 15, 1877. Little information could be found on Drisko's early life or education, and in May 1903 married Myra Luella Noyes (1876-1952), to who he was wed until his death. The couple would be childless.

   While there is a dearth of resources mentioning Drisko, his 1938 obituary gives note as to his employment with the Eastern Pulpwood Co. of Calais, Maine as a purchasing agent. He is also mentioned as a farmer. In 1903 he was elected as Jonesboro town tax assessor and five years later was serving as first selectman, an office he'd be returned to on several further occasions. In 1911 he was serving Jonesboro as one of two town constables and in 1916 made his first run for the Maine legislature but was defeated.

  In 1930 Drisko was again a candidate for the legislature and was this time elected. During the 1931-33 term he was a member of the committee on Federal Relations, and after winning a second term in 1932 was named to the additional committee on Cities and Towns. Drisko's final term (1935-37) saw him serve on the committee on Education.

  Little else is known of Drisko's life, except notice of his death in Machias, Maine on March 19, 1938. His wife Myra survived him by fourteen years, and after her death in 1952 was interred alongside him at the Forest Hill Cemetery in Jonesboro.

  

From the Bangor Daily News, March 21, 1938.