Down at sandy southern Maine’s storied Old Orchard Beach one summer near about 35 years ago, a young man from Lewiston, fresh out of college and grad school, strolled the steamy sidewalks and iconic wooden pier pondering the rest of his life.

One day, he noticed some jazz music coming from a church-like structure, and, having graduated with a degree in music, he promptly found himself being drawn past the boozy dives and carnival rides to its source up the street.

There, Carl Carvill found his future.

While the music was lovely, it was secondary to the building’s chief function: The youthful Carvill had entered the local Salvation Army chapel, where the officer in charge also taught music classes to the children of his flock.

Now, three and a half decades later and with more than a half-dozen leadership assignments in the books – including the last eight years in Nashua – Majs Carl and Barbara Carvill are bidding farewell to “the place we woke up when we clicked our heels three times and said, ‘There’s no place like home’?” for their next assignment in Ithaca, N.Y.

“We’ll definitely miss Nashua, and New England,” Carvill said. “But we have friends in Ithaca, and the corps there is very active.

“It also places a strong emphasis on its pastoral programs and program development, areas in which we have strong background. It’s nice for officers to go into a chapel that’s packed on Sunday mornings.”

The Carvills are turning the local Army over to Capts. David and Norma Moore, who come on board next week after serving several years in Red Bank, N.J.

“Nashua will be in great hands,” Carvill said. “The Moores come from a family of (Salvation Army) soldiers. They have a rich history in the mission.”

Today, the Carvills are resting up between farewell receptions. The first was Thursday evening’s gathering at board member Tom Jenkins’ home, where scads of associates, friends and people from other local agencies – even a few local politicos – dropped by to exchange handshakes, hugs and thank-yous and, as Carvill likes to say, “raise a glass or two of club soda.”

And on Sunday at 11 a.m., the couple will conduct their final worship service in the Main Street chapel they’ve called home for eight years. A post-service social at the next-door annex will give attendees the opportunity to bid them farewell.

Looking back, Carvill recalls the “spiritual awakening” he experienced upon his introduction to the Army.

“After grad school, I wasn’t quite sure what I wanted to do, what direction I’d take,” Carvill said last week. But, he added, the answers fell into place as soon as he entered the Salvation Army and met the musical officer.

“What drew me from the start was the opportunity for serving God through substantiative community action that makes a difference in people’s lives,” he said.

Old Orchard was also the place where the Carvills, who celebrated 31 years of marriage this month, first met. Barbara Carvill was a brand-new lieutenant, ordained and commissioned at Old Orchard shortly after her future husband entered the mission.

“It’s been an amazing journey, 35 years so far, and looking forward to the next eight,” Barbara Carvill said. “This is the time to pause and give praise for a life that could have been a lot less.”

From Old Orchard, Carl Carvill went on to a two-year stint at the Army officers’ training school. He began his service in 1979, six days after their wedding. Their first assignments as a couple took them to corps in New Jersey and New York.

They’d go on to a variety of assignments throughout the Northeast, including several in New York and the Philadelphia area and one in Cleveland. Carl Carvill said among his favorite missions was helping establish a staff band while in New York and his service as a hospital chaplain in Queens.

But of all their stations large and small, the Carvills said, Nashua will always hold a special place in their hearts and souls.

“We were here the longest of anywhere we’ve been. Right away, we saw (the Nashua corps’) tremendous heritage of service,” Carl Carvill said, naming longtime dedicated volunteers such as Lucille L’Hereux and Blanche Ladue, both of whom recently retired after something like 70 or 80 years of combined service.

“This is a place where fundamental values still count, where people are devoted to family,” he said.

While Barbara Carvill’s favorite assignment “still has to be my very first, Old Orchard; it’s where I met my husband,” she said Nashua is a close second.

“Nashua is the one place that no matter what’s going on, we loved to come home,” she said. “This is where our children put roots down; they all love it here, two of them so much that they’re staying here.”

All three Carvill children, now in their 20s, have spent countless hours as staff members or volunteers, usually a combination thereof, during their parents’ tenure here. Beth, the oldest, is approaching 30, while Tara is 26 and Eric is 24.

Nashua’s corps has a full, far-reaching background. Its first mission house, which opened in 1882, was tucked inside a modest home on Elm Street around where the parking garage is now. It later moved to 66 Main St., and in 1922, settled in to its longtime home on Temple Street, to the rear of the former Indian Head Bank.

The growing corps moved in November 1981 to its present location at Main Street and Montgomery Avenue, the former home of the First Church of the Nazarene.

While the Carvills are frequently credited with broadening the 128-year-old Nashua corps’ community image through creative awareness campaigns and community outreach programs, the two are quick to redirect the praise in two directions: the board, staff and volunteers, and mostly, their higher power.

“It’s always a ‘we,’ not a ‘me,’?” Carl Carvill said. “Any positive effect we may have had here started with the Lord God. All these wonderful people (board members, staff and volunteers) didn’t just come here by mistake; he put them here, and it’s through advancing his agenda that we all find success.”

Barbara Carvill, as she’s known to do from time to time, condensed her husband’s message to nutshell-size: “It’s all a team effort.

“Jesus is the captain; we’re the team.”

Dean Shalhoup’s column appears Saturdays in The Telegraph. He can be reached at 673-3100, ext. 31, or dshalhoup@nashuatelegraph.com.