Galen Cole

Galen Cole
Galen Cole at the Cole Land Transportation Museum addresses a group of students from Maine School Administrative District 63 in 2007.
Born	1925 (age 91–92)
Residence	Bangor, Maine
Nationality	American
Education	Bangor High School
Home town	Bangor, Maine
Spouse(s)	Sue Welch Cole
Parent(s)	Albert J. Cole Amy Stone
Awards	Purple Heart

Galen Cole (born 1925) is a Maine World War II veteran and philanthropist. He manages the Cole Land Transportation Museum, the Walking Sticks for Veterans program, and organizes numerous activities and charity drives for veterans and related causes in his native Bangor, Maine.

Galen was born in 1925 to Albert J. "Allie" Cole, founder of the Cole Express delivery company, and Amy Stone, a schoolteacher. He was the fifth child of seven born to the couple. From a young age he was interested in trucks and enjoyed spending time with the drivers employed by his father. Galen would accompany drivers as they delivered Sears & Roebuck mail order catalogs to Deer Isle. He described the reactions of the Isle residents upon receiving the catalogs as: “You’d have thought we were the Queen Mary!”

In 1936, his family moved into the former Noyes & Nutter stove foundry in Bangor. His father took a job loading potatoes onto schooners on the Penobscot River.

Galen entered basic training in 1945, and shortly thereafter received the news that his childhood best friend, Charlie Flanagan, had been killed on the Siegfried Line. He became a replacement in the Fifth Armored Division. One day in April, Galen was sitting in the back of a half-track when he was asked to move; he complied. Later, a German shell came through where Galen had been sitting earlier, killing the five men on that side of the half-track and wounding the others. He was discharged in 1946.

After the war, Galen returned to Maine to be with his wife, Sue Welch Cole, and their five children. At age 29, he became president of Cole Express and joined the Bangor City Council. During his time as the president of Cole Express, he developed a split-compartment truck that allowed petroleum and freight to be transported simultaneously.