One of life’s most difficult realities to grapple with is that we don’t get to decide when our turn comes to depart. All that we can hope for is that the actions and decisions made during our time here allows us to live on in the memories and hearts of those we interacted with.

Scott Mathison unexpectedly and suddenly departed on Sept. 2 at the age of 63 due to a suspected brain aneurism. But in the tragically abbreviated time he was ultimately allotted, his legacy was also guaranteed — to be seen indefinitely not only through the works of art he crafted that now adorn homes throughout the East Bay, but within the hearts of family and friends who knew him as a kindhearted husband and father, and a passionately dedicated friend.

“It’s one of those things that makes a place like Warren really special, is somebody like Scott,” said Hadley Arnold, who owns the former St. Mark’s Church at 21 Lyndon St. and got to know Scott during his time renovating the property. “It’s an outsized, disproportionate impact that they have, and leave, in a small town.”

A family man, and a self-starter
Scott Mathison, a Southern California native, moved to Warren in 1997 with his wife of 29 years, Marilyn, after the two met in San Diego.

“I was going through a divorce,” Marilyn said. “We met and we just fell head over heels.”

Marilyn talked about how Scott immediately bonded with her daughter from her previous marriage, Lydea.

“He was the best dad,” she said. “He used to take Lydea out on dates. I had to work Friday nights and he would babysit her and they would walk to McDonalds, then go to Blockbuster and get Rodgers and Hammerstein movies and every Friday they had a standing date.”

After her parents moved to Rhode Island following her father’s retirement from the Marine Corps, Marilyn and Scott eventually followed and settled in Warren, finding their dream home. It needed some work, but that was no problem for Scott, who had trained to be a carpenter in his late teens and then went on to become a professional diesel mechanic for big rig trucks.

“He started by restoring the windows and found the French doors in the attic and put them in and that’s how he learned to hang doors,” Marilyn said. “Hanging doors is a real art.”

It wasn’t long after that when Scott decided to start his own business in 1999, naming it Scott’s Doors and Windows.

“I met Scott when he moved to Warren 30 years ago,” recalled Davison Bolster, Chair of the town’s Historic District Commission who also served on the Town Council. “He was a diesel truck mechanic in Warwick, but he had a passion for restoring old windows…For years, myself and others encouraged him to take the leap and go into business for himself, but he was nervous that he wouldn’t get enough business. Over those years, he restored more windows and gained more clients, until he finally went out on his own, and the rest is history. Decades later, Scott has left a legacy of beautiful doors and windows all over the region.”

Specializing in renovations of historic properties, he made a reputation for himself as being the go-to person to call, whether you needed to repair a sagging window sash, recreate an historic sill to exact specifications, or create something wholly unique and special from scratch. His list of high-profile projects include the doors of the Historic Warren Armory, the windows of the mid-18th-century Maxwell House, and the former headquarters of the Warren Preservation Society at 31 Baker St., a group he and Marilyn joined at its inception, along with countless other door and window projects at properties throughout the region.

Marvel at St. Mark’s
But perhaps no project among the many he tackled throughout the 25-year history of Scott’s Doors and Windows epitomized Mathison’s talent as a craftsman, and his magnetic personality as a human, as the renovation of the former St. Mark’s Church.

“By the time we met Scott in 2014, his was the only game in town; he was the go-to fabricator for historically accurate, beautifully built doors and windows up and down the East Bay,” wrote Hadley Arnold in a tribute post following his passing on Facebook. “Together with Scott, we set out to restore Russell Warren’s 1830 vision for St. Mark’s as a wood-frame Greek revival temple of light. That would mean reclaiming it from the darkening effects of late 19th century stained glass, and restoring clear glass to 15-foot tall openings—fully operable, double-hung sashes and their Palladian half-rounds. It took us a while, but by 2022 we were ready to go.”

Along with his business partner, Ali Ayers, Scott went to work uninstalling the existing windows and installing the replacement windows they had fabricated in the shop; massive, 15-foot marvels that seemed to defy the laws of physics. Through that process, they uncovered the now-infamous 1877 stained glass panel depicting Christ and Gospel women as people of color. Under Scott’s guidance, the extrication of the old windows and installation of the new ones went as smoothly as such a complicated, delicate process could go.

And complicated it was, Arnold said in a recent interview, as during the process of installing the huge panes, Scott discovered that the walls of one side of the former church had a significant curve in them following damage the building sustained when a tree fell on it during the Hurricane of 1938.

“Gravity has a really hard time following a curve. You need a straight wall to have pulleys drop up and down in the thickness of it and operate smoothly. And wouldn’t you know, he really embraced how we were going to get these windows to work as intended when we have a curved exterior wall to work with. And he just went for it,” Arnold said. “He widened up the opening to the extent that he could, and slimmed down the counterweights, finding the only guy in New Hampshire who would make them, and found a way to get counterweights to travel in a channel that has a curve to it.”

“We got tremendous pleasure and satisfaction and pride in seeing Scott really take that on,” she continued. “It was just one more example of how committed he was to his work.”

But just as impressive to Arnold as his professional prowess as a craftsman was his disarming personality.

“A really skilled craftsman as a technician is certainly valuable…but to also bring a kind of affability and a ‘Let’s talk about motorcycles, or racing bicycles, or high precision model train building’ while we’re also figuring out windows, to trade stories and keep it relaxed, warm, and confident while doing it, it’s essentially unheard of,” she said. “And then you sprinkle that all over town with every project he did. And then picture him on his bicycle or in his van or up on a ladder working with you and your neighbors, and you realize what a multi-dimensional gift he brought to all of us.”

Always willing to help with a smile
Eileen Collins, President of the Warren Preservation Society, concurred that Scott’s skills were unmatched in the region, but that his willingness to help with any little odd project also stuck with her.

“Scott was a very happy-go-lucky guy. For the most part, he just kind of beat to his own drum, as they say. He had very varied interests, but he had such a passion for everything he did,” she said. “He would help Brandt [Heckert, her husband] and I fix a door that wouldn’t hang correctly or get it to shut properly and get the lock to work properly. It was always something old and kind of complicated, but he had the patience and the passion and the generosity to help out with things like that.”

“He loved to gab. He was very colorful, and a very alive person,” she continued. “Warren is a little bit less special without Scott.”

For Marilyn, memories of Scott will forever be plentiful. From the model train set in their basement that he would meticulously build and rebuild in a chase for perfection, to the custom doors and windows that turned their house into their home, and the lingering echoes of his booming voice that belied his soft and good-natured soul.

Marilyn said that Scott truly found his passion through his business and his work, and although it didn’t make them wealthy, it made them rich in other more meaningful ways.

“We didn’t really make a lot of money but he sure was happy, so we just kept the business going. It was just what he needed every day, to go to work,” she said. “He did everything exactly the same every day. Same peanut butter toast for breakfast, every day. Me, I'm just the opposite. I don't like doing the same thing two days in a row. So it was pretty funny, the two of us.”

Marilyn said that since his passing, she has been overwhelmed by the showing of support given to her by the community that Scott built.

“My refrigerator is full of food and I’ve had more hugs this past week than probably my whole life all put together,” she said. “I kind of had a feeling that we really were a part of the community, but I didn’t really understand how much, and how wonderful Warren is.”

As for what we can learn from Scott and how he lived, it was Bolster who said it best.

“One lesson for all of us is to follow our dreams, even when they appear impossible, because that’s where the good stuff is,” he said. “Rest in peace Scott. Glad you got to follow your dreams.”