St. Amour named MVH Veteran of the Month for April

SOUTH PARIS — The Maine Maine Veterans’ Home recently announced Roland St. Amour was chosen Veteran of the Month for April.

St. Amour was drafted to the U.S. Army at 19 in January 1943. He attended basic training at the Army Mobilization Training Camp in Texas and later was sent to a training camp in North Carolina for commando training then on to Georgia to await departure on the ship Queen Mary, heading to England, where he prepared for the Normandy Invasion. He was trained as a gunner for the 3rd Armored “Spearhead” division, which was attached to the 486th Armored Anti-Aircraft Battalion.
St. Amour recalls being on a boat heading to Omaha beach and a sailor giving him a bunk and gun. He said, “You will need it when you get down there; a good night’s sleep.” The battalion landed on Omaha beach in June 1944. St. Amour recollects lots of rifle fire and shooting down quite a few German airplanes. He recalls their anti-aircraft tanks came in and opened up the hedgerow. From there, they moved on to Cologne, where all night he could hear the planes dropping bombs. They were heading to relieve the infantry at the Siege of Bastogne in Belgium.
The main objective of the 3rd Armored “Spearhead” division was always to be in front of the infantry, which they did all the way to Berlin. In April 1945, the 3rd armored division discovered the Dora-Mittelbau concentration camp and liberated 250 ill and starving prisoners. St. Amour can still picture the big ovens, visualizes the people being skin and bones and the dead bodies strewn about. By the time St. Amour was honorably discharged from the Army in December 1945, he had spent two years in active combat, having fought in five campaigns in Normandy, Northern France, Rhineland, Ardennes-Alsace and Central Europe.
St. Amour says he feels very lucky to have made it through the war with only some loss of hearing in his right ear from where he use to fire his rifle. He lost a lot of friends, and most of the guys he was with were killed. St. Amour was able to return to Germany in 1995 to visit with some of the people they had liberated from the concentration camp. He is proud that he was still receiving mail from them, even though he can’t read them because they are written in German.
Following his military service, St. Amour worked at Bates Mill in Lewiston as a dyer during the day and, in the evenings, he worked as a door-to-door salesman for W.T. Rawleigh Co., selling health products. He enjoyed meeting people; at times, some had large families he knew couldn’t afford the medicine, so he wouldn’t ask them to pay. “Usually in the spring, they would pick up nickels and dimes and pay me,” he recalled. St. Amour retired at 65 but enjoyed being around people so much he went to work at Shaw’s Supermarket. He worked there for 15 years until he needed to care for his wife Rena, who was diagnosed with dementia. He took care of her at home for five years until it was no longer safe to do so.
St. Amour met Rena at a dance. In July, they wil have been married for 73. The couple raised four children — three boys and a girl — and have five grandchildren. St. Amour has worked all his life and never had time to play games or travel. He is now enjoying life at the Maine Veterans’ Home in South Paris, playing bingo, going out to eat, attending religious programs in addition to other social functions that he enjoys. His biggest enjoyment is socializing. He will tell you, “I like to talk.” He especially enjoys the time he spends with his wife, who now resides at MVH.
St. Amour came to the Maine Veterans’ Home in September and was recently honored in Augusta at the Remember Me Ceremony, hosted by the Maine Health Care Association. This photography tribute and recognition ceremony is for residents of nursing homes and assisted living facilities statewide.

PHOTO: Roland St. Amour with, from left, Michael St. Amour, Paul St. Amour, Leola St. Amour and Joline Colby at the Remember Me Ceremony in Augusta. (Submitted photo)