Michael Gillespie was Abington through and through.

He was a linebacker on the football team at Abington High School, from which he graduated in 1956.

He was a 26-year member of the township Police Department.

And then he was a township commissioner, first elected in 1990 and serving in his fifth term at the time of his death.

On Wednesday, Mr. Gillespie, 71, of Glenside, died of complications from prostate cancer at Fox Chase Cancer Center.

After serving in the Marine Corps for three years, Mr. Gillespie joined the Abington Township Police Department in 1962. When he retired in 1988, he expanded Gillespie Landscaping, the business he began in 1966 and continued until his death.

Mr. Gillespie was a member of the Greater Glenside Patriotic Association and, since the late 1990s, cochair of its Fourth of July parade.

His son, John, said Mr. Gillespie raised money for Citizens and Police Together, which helped fund community groups in the township.

In the mid-1990s, when parents felt a need for crossing guards at the elementary school of St. Luke the Evangelist Roman Catholic Church, Mr. Gillespie organized a group of men to do the job, his son said.

For the last 10 years, he used his lawn-care trucks to deliver food to needy families in the township as part of the holiday work of the Abington High School Key Club. And, his son said, Mr. Gillespie was a member of the fund-raising committee that helped build an all-purpose stadium for the Abington School District.

A member of Abington Town Watch since 1999, he was a member of the Marine Corps League, the Glenside Old Timers, the Glenside Chamber of Commerce, and the Montgomery County Lodge 14 of the Fraternal Order of Police.

Last year, his son said, Mr. Gillespie was still in good enough shape to bicycle from Cherry Hill to Ocean City and back, in the 150-mile City to Shore Ride that raises money for the National Multiple Sclerosis Society. He had been in that ride, his son said, for the last 10 years.

Besides his son, Mr. Gillespie is survived by his wife, Carol; daughters Jill and Joy; two brothers; three sisters; a grandson; and a granddaughter.

A viewing was set for 9:30 a.m. today at St. Luke the Evangelist Roman Catholic Church, Easton Road and Fairhill Avenue in Glenside, followed by an 11 a.m. Funeral Mass. Burial is to be in Hillside Cemetery in Abington.