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Former Selectman Francis Gros Louis dies at 87

WILTON – Francis Gros Louis is being remembered by friends as a hard-working selectman who left for a career in in the federal government but never lost his ties to Wilton.

Gros Louis was 87 when he died on Jan. 31 in Leesburg, Virginia.

He served with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development for 35 years in multiple key positions, including special assistant to HUD Secretary Andrew Cuomo. He was also national director of disaster recovery for the 557 federally recognized American Indian reservations and director of loan management and property disposition for Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont. During his HUD career he received more than 30 outstanding performance awards.

Before joining HUD Gros Louis worked for 15 years in Wilton as the deputy superintendent of the Abbott Textile Mills. During that time he was also a member of the Governor’s Crime Commission Task Force and the Governor’s Resource and Development Committee.

He also served three terms on the Wilton Board of Selectmen in the 1960s and 1970s.

“Francis was not afraid to participate” and not afraid to speak his mind, said Stanley Young of Wilton, a lifelong friend. When Gros Louis thought town officials “were not on the right track he would speak up.”

He was also on the Wilton Fire Department, working his way up to captain and was also a deputy forest fire warden for New Hampshire.

“In his heart, he never left Wilton,” Young said, and continued to take an interest in the town’s government and to comment when he thought selectmen had made a bad decision.

He received an award from the University of New Hampshire for outstanding service to youth and was recognized by the Sears Foundation with a conservation communication award. His family was named the New Hampshire All-American Family in 1970.

A proudly enrolled member of the Huron-Wendat Indian Nation, he received a Points of Light Award for starting “Operation Clothesline,” which brought clothing donations to the people of the Oglala Sioux Indian Nation.

Gros Louis also received numerous awards for his speeches and published articles and wrote a column for The Cabinet.

“He paid attention to what was going on, and he was a tiger when solving problems … He didn’t let anything slip by,” said Charlie McGettigan of Wilton, a former Wilton selectman and lifelong friend of Gros Louis.

After he and his wife Shirley retired to a condominium complex in Virginia in 2001, Gros Louis barely seemed to slow down. He gave keynote speeches on patriotic holidays, published a monthly newsletter, participated in entertainments, served two terms on the Blue Ridge Board of Directors and volunteered with the county Board of Supervisors.

Shirley Gros Louis, his wife of 64 years, died in 2017.

Gros Louis was born in Woonsocket, R.I. and graduated from the Tilton School and Boston College and served four years with the U.S. Air Force during the Korean War. In 1972 and again in 2008 he received the George L. Plimpton Award for a Tilton alumnus who made outstanding contributions to society.

A service will be announced at a later date, to coincide with internment at Arlington National Cemetery.

Kathy Cleveland can be reached at 673-3100 or kcleveland@cabinet.com