Brian Lee Plummer, an easy-going father who loved family, friends, and golf, died at his Truro home on Oct. 10, 2024, surrounded by family. He died less than three months after being diagnosed with cancer. He was 71.
The youngest of Burton Franklin Plummer and Marjorie Ford Plummer’s three sons, Brian was born on Dec. 15, 1952 in Weymouth. His mother worked as a teller for Cape Cod Bank and Trust, and his father operated his own auto registry and title service business.
As the youngest, he trailed behind his brothers and begged to be included in their games, which led to their dubbing him “Me Too.”
His parents played regularly at the Marshfield Golf Club, and their sons took jobs there as caddies. Brian’s brother Reed recalls how they would feel for golf balls in water hazards with their bare feet and then sell them for a quarter each. Those early experiences led to Brian’s lifelong love for the game.
His family took frequent day trips to Provincetown throughout Brian’s childhood and teenage years.
At Duxbury High School, Brian was the goalie on the soccer team when they reached the state finals and also starred on the varsity basketball team — but golf was his favorite. He graduated in 1970, and over the course of many years, he and some 20 of his high school friends, including Joel Small, his best friend since kindergarten, met every other year to play golf in the Carolinas.
After high school, he traveled across the country, sometimes hitchhiking. He made his way to Hawaii but was summoned home by the draft in the latter years of the Vietnam War. He was excused from service as a conscientious objector.
After studying anthropology at Portland State University in Oregon, Brian headed back east to Provincetown, where he met Beth Firmin and her seven-year-old daughter, Autumn.
“Beth’s husband was volatile,” said Brian’s wife, Rosa. “He suggested they play a game of chess for the woman.” Brian lost, but Beth fled with him to New York City anyway. “They stuffed all their possessions, including a parrot, a dog, and a cat, into the car” and then hit the road, Rosa said.
Brian, Beth, and Autumn lived for a while in New York, and he worked as a bartender at the Cupping Room in Soho and the French restaurant Le Zink before spending three years in the Virgin Islands.
Back in New York, the actor Joaquin De Almeida introduced him to Rosa Empis, a Portuguese student at the School of Visual Arts. Brian and Rosa married in 1987.
Brian began to bartend summers in Provincetown and winters in New York, with trips in between to visit Rosa and her family in Portugal. Their lives were enriched by many great friendships, and after a few years Brian and Rosa moved to Provincetown.
Brian was a 7-handicap golfer with nine holes in one, mostly at Highland Links in Truro. His friends called him “one-iron Brian” because he was so good he would use a one iron instead of a driver. He persuaded Rosa to play in the couples’ league, which she did for the first time while nine months pregnant. “I loved it, though,” she said.
Brian coached his two sons in soccer, baseball, and basketball at Truro Central School. “He was a great father,” his sons, Max and Miguel, said, “calm, kind, and understanding. He was strict too when he needed to be, but that was rarely.”
“Brian loved to party and had an easygoing personality,” said Rosa. “He hated gossip.”
“He taught us patience and to be fair to others, and to always be truthful,” his sons said.
Brian is survived by his wife, Rosa Empis of Truro; his brothers, Gregory and wife Siobhan of Port St. Lucie, Fla. and Reed and wife Jacque of Centerville; his sons, Miguel and wife Julia of Watertown and Max and girlfriend Meagan Schulte of San Diego, Calif.; his niece Dara and husband Ryan of Plymouth; and Rosa’s extended family in Portugal.
A celebration of life is being planned for next spring.
