Linda Bean, an inheritor to the Maine outside retailer L.L. Bean who created an organization of her personal to market different well-known Maine merchandise, mainly lobster rolls and seaside leases, and who was an outspoken conservative in a state with a convention of favoring political independents, died on Saturday. She was 82.
An obituary, which didn’t cite a trigger or say the place she died, was posted by the funeral house dealing with her burial.
Ms. Bean was a granddaughter of Leon Leonwood Bean, the purveyor of rubber-soled duck boots and plaid flannel shirts that crossed over from hunters to preppies, fueling the corporate’s progress right into a nationwide catalog behemoth and one in every of Maine’s largest employers.
As one in every of about 30 heirs, with a seat on the board of the privately owned firm, Ms. Bean used her wealth to help right-wing causes and politicians, together with former President Donald J. Trump; to amass work and properties related to the Wyeth artwork household; and to set out as an entrepreneur in her mid-60s.
In January 2017, the Federal Election Fee mentioned {that a} contribution of tens of 1000’s of {dollars} that Ms. Bean made to a gaggle supporting Mr. Trump, Making America Nice Once more LLC, exceeded the person donor restrict of $5,000. An anti-Trump group threatened a boycott of L.L. Bean; the corporate distanced itself from Ms. Bean however didn’t take away her from the board.
An organization Ms. Bean created in 2007, Linda Bean’s Good Maine, started with the acquisition of a industrial wharf that provided bait to lobster boats and acquired their catch within the picturesque village of Port Clyde, the place she had a house. Her ambition was to mass-market lobster below her personal identify — as Frank Perdue had branded rooster — and to maintain Maine lobster from being despatched for processing to Canada, which Ms. Bean thought-about a socialist state.
She acknowledged that advertising, not lobstering, was her forte.
“I like to work with phrases,” she informed The New York Occasions in 2009, musing about menu gadgets similar to Linda Bean’s Port Clyde Lobster Stew and Linda Bean’s Lobster Cuddlers — a reputation she most popular to explain lobster claws with butter. “Like rooster tenders — it tells you you’re consuming one thing succulent, not scary,” she mentioned.
Ms. Bean went on to amass different lobster wharves in close by Tenants Harbor and on the island of Vinalhaven. She additionally opened a lobster processing plant in Rockland and established a restaurant chain, with areas in Portland, Camden and Freeport, Maine (close to the flagship L.L. Bean retailer), and in Delray Seashore, Fla.
In 2016, Ms. Bean and others succeeded in having the Maine lobster fishery licensed as sustainable by an impartial group, the Marine Stewardship Council, in what was seen as a consumer-friendly coup. (The certification was suspended in 2020 due to lobstering’s impression on whales.)
Lower than a decade after beginning her enterprise, Ms. Bean single-handedly accounted for about 5.5 % of Maine’s lobster catch, in line with The Bangor Every day Information. She had additionally, the newspaper mentioned, turn out to be “one of many extra controversial figures within the state.”
Ms. Bean’s conservative politics have been well-known from her two congressional races, her help of hard-right social insurance policies and her feuds with the state’s Republican institution, which she thought-about too reasonable.
For a few years, she was an officer of the Eagle Discussion board Training & Authorized Protection Fund, a conservative group based by Phyllis Schlafly. Ms. Bean raised cash for a profitable marketing campaign in 1984 to defeat a state Equal Rights Modification banning discrimination based mostly on intercourse. In 2005, she supported a marketing campaign to repeal a state legislation that banned discrimination towards L.G.B.T.Q. individuals — an effort that failed.
In February 2021, simply after the Jan. 6 riot on the U.S. Capitol, Ms. Bean gave $150,000 to a committee supporting Mr. Trump, in line with the F.E.C.
Linda Lorraine Bean was born on April 28, 1941, in Portland, Maine. Her father, Charles Warren Bean, was a designer of leather-based and canvas items for his father’s firm. Her mom, Hazel June (Turner) Bean, was within the typing pool at L.L. Bean when she met Charles Bean, and he or she later turned a member of the L.L. Bean board.
Linda Bean graduated from Antioch School in 1963 with a level in enterprise and accounting. That yr she married James Raymond Clark. A second marriage, to Verne E. Jones in 1975, ended along with his loss of life in 1985. She was married a 3rd time, to Donald L. Folkers, from 1990 to 2007.
She is survived by a sister, Diana Bean; three sons from her first marriage, Nathan, Jason and Kevin Clark; and 4 grandchildren.
Ms. Bean was initially a Kennedy Democrat, she informed The Occasions in 1992, however was pulled rightward by Mr. Jones, her second husband, a farmer nearly 4 a long time her senior who balked on the energy of native authorities over his property.
In 1988, she ran in and misplaced the Republican major for a congressional seat in Maine’s First District, which incorporates the state’s southeastern coast. 4 years later, she gained the first for the seat however misplaced by a landslide within the common election to the Democratic incumbent, Thomas Andrews.
Ms. Bean’s love of Port Clyde prolonged past the lobster enterprise. She purchased up a lot of its waterfront, together with the Port Clyde Normal Retailer, the Dip Internet Restaurant and a pair of inns, in addition to homes that she transformed to trip leases.
Her enthusiasm prolonged to a few generations of artists — N.C. Wyeth, Andrew Wyeth and Jamie Wyeth — whose life like works are strongly linked to the individuals and landscapes of the St. George Peninsula, which incorporates Port Clyde, and to the lonely outlying islands. Moreover accumulating their artwork, at her loss of life Ms. Bean was constructing a library in Port Clyde to accommodate books concerning the clan, the Wyeth Studying Room. She even purchased a townhouse in Wilmington, Del., the place N.C. Wyeth lived after his marriage in 1906, full along with his honeymoon mattress.
Ms. Bean’s aggressive acquisitions in Port Clyde didn’t at all times sit nicely with locals, nor did her company branding of Maine’s coastal life-style. Neighbors went to courtroom to cease the library, complaining that it was too large for the positioning and would draw an excessive amount of visitors, however she prevailed.
She defended her investments in Port Clyde and close by villages as defending a cherished lifestyle.
“Most individuals retire of their mid-60s, however I’ve continued that further 10 years in St. George as a result of I care about my neighborhood and wish to assist keep lobstering, artwork and customer hospitality that give this peninsula its specific vitality,” she mentioned in an interview with The Bangor Every day Information in 2017.
Lately, although, she had stepped again from managing her companies.
In September 2023, a fireplace on the Dip Internet Restaurant destroyed it and two of her different waterfront companies: the final retailer and an artwork gallery, the place works by N.C. Wyeth and Jamie Wyeth have been misplaced. The fireplace additionally broken the workplace of the corporate that runs the Monhegan Island Boat Line.
Ms. Bean had referred to as the harm a “devastating blow” and vowed to rebuild as quickly as doable.