Nicholas C. Arguimbau

WARWICK- Nicholas Clapp Arguimbau was born January 6, 1950, in Boston, Massachusetts, the son of Lawrence Baker Arguimbau and Elinor Clapp Arguimbau. The family moved to Foxboro, Mass, and later to Chenango, New York, and Lancaster, Massachusetts.

Nick graduated from Nashoba Regional High School. He was always an excellent student and competed in the Massachusetts State Science Fair, with a project about hybridizing daylilies. He attended Harvard University, majoring in physics. After graduation, he bicycled across southern Canada and US until he had to give up the ride in Colorado due to severe sunburn. He enrolled in graduate school at Cal Tech, but then decided he did not want to spend life in a laboratory and transferred to UCLA Law School.

After graduating, he clerked for the Alaska Supreme Court in Anchorage. As an attorney his first love was environmental law, working for a time for Californians for a Better Environment. He also worked as a criminal defense attorney for the law firm of Ephraim Margolin in San Francisco and then in private practice. With his incisive mind, he excelled at writing brilliant legal briefs. When his independent law firm failed, he sold his house in Fairfax, California, and bought a small farm in Warwick, Massachusetts bringing with him his two husky dogs. He was attracted to the town for its rural atmosphere and the fact that many of his ancestors including the Blakes, had lived there in the 1800s.

Nick served for a few years as a town selectman, and also served on the town planning board. He, along with many others, worked actively to preserve the Gale Brook watershed. He planted many fruit trees to supplement his historic apple orchard. Each Fall, he held a “come pick your own free” apple event.

Nick married Martha Ture in 1979, but they later divorced. They had no children.

He is survived by his sisters, Edith Davidson of Worcester, Massachusetts, and her two children, and Ellen Arguimbau of Kellogg, Idaho.

No funeral is planned at this time, but there will be a community memorial get-together sometime in April or May.

Witty’s Funeral Home, 158 South Main Street, Orange, is assisting the family.

Guest book online at WWW.WITTYFUNERALHOME.COM

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