PORTLAND- John Michael Contus, age 65, passed away peacefully at Gosnell Memorial Hospice House on July 16, 2024.
John was born on April 4, 1959, to Doris Evelyn Wall & Solon James Contus in Torrance, California. The eighth child of nine siblings, Johnny would grow to tower over them all at 6 feet 4 inches.
He graduated from Edison Elementary in 1972 & North Torrance High in 1977, while earning a Certificate of Proficiency in Auto Body Painting from the Southern California Regional Occupational Center.
From a young age, John’s positive energy and generous personality gathered to him many lifelong friends. He loved spicey food, sci-fi, action & cowboy movies, and was a prolific and meticulous artist. He became a skilled auto body technician and further applied that talent to his work as an auto body painter for several race car owners in the South Bay Los Angeles racing community over his brief career.
At age 39, in 1998, a stroke left him partially paralyzed with cognitive disabilities. He remained in California under the care of his widowed mother until her death in 2007. His siblings, nieces and nephews were left to seek out services for his debilitating needs, which led him on his journey to Phoenix, Arizona, and moving across the country to New Hampshire. Sadly, because of worsening neuropathy, John could no longer draw or paint, but found a way to regain a great deal of mobility living happily and independently with his cat, Tabby, from 2009 to 2023 at Remick Acres Assisted Living in Tamworth, New Hampshire. He loved working out at Lakeside Physical Therapy’s public gym and cooking his own meals. He experienced one exciting moment by applying his love for motorcycles and desert bike activities of his youth to an assisted snow mobile ride through Franconia Notch State Park.
As time went on, John endured leg amputation, diabetes, heart disease, and finally acute renal failure, requiring dyalysis, which placed him at Saint Joseph’s Long Term Care facility in Portland, Maine. Regardless of all his ailments and challenges, he miraculously maintained a positive attitude and such a strong will to live to the very end of his life.
John’s gentle giant, friendly disposition was his reputation with caregivers far and wide. His “fast & furious” youthful love of life will be how his friends and family will always remember him. His remains will be placed with his parents’ gravesite in Rancho Palos Verdes, California. Services are pending.
Arrangements have been entrusted to Chad E. Poitras Cremation and Funeral Service, Buxton, www.mainefuneral.com