Rices remembered for their spirit of love

Lorraine Andrews and Wayne Rice were teenagers when they met at a Shead Memorial High School dance, and they were still teenagers when they married in 1953. To court her, he walked from his home in Pembroke to hers in Eastport, often stopping along the way to pick up bottles to turn in for the cash that financed their dates. If there wasn't enough money for two tickets to the local movie theater, he bought one for her and waited outside to walk her home afterwards.

Throughout the 56 years they were married, they were rarely apart. Wayne never took a job if it meant he couldn't be home every day at 11:30 a.m. for lunch with Lorraine. They delighted in the family they raised together, a son, Wayne Jr., and two daughters, Sally-Jo and Janice, always called Jana. Later, five grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren completed the circle. They sustained each other through tragedy – the loss of two infants, their son's death at age 17 in a car crash, Wayne's two battles with cancer – and the lesser bumps in the road they traveled together.

They were together on their last day of life on January 29 when Wayne lost control of their Kia on Route 9 near Aurora as they were traveling to Bangor for a medical appointment. Their car skidded into the path of an oncoming SUV, police said, citing speed and icy road conditions. Lorraine was killed instantly. Wayne never regained consciousness and died a few hours later at a Bangor hospital. Two passengers in the other vehicle escaped serious injury. If there was comfort to be found in the horror, Jana said, it was that they were together when their lives ended. One living on without the other was unthinkable.

On February 6, more than 300 relatives, friends and neighbors gathered at the Pembroke Elementary School to honor Wayne and Lorraine, to console their family, to celebrate the lives they lived, and, most of all, to honor the legacy they left – their example of the total commitment of one person to another. Sally-Jo and Jana planned the memorial as their mother wanted, as she outlined in a note she left for them to find in her dresser drawer.

The Rices loved people and parties. Their daughters found seven fireproof lock boxes among their things. The "valuables" they contained were souvenirs of a lifetime of social gatherings – party hats, programs, photos and such, mementos of good times. They loved to dance and to listen to lively music, country, folk or traditional. In the mid-90s, they started attending the Monday night gatherings of musicians at the EDM Youth Center in Dennysville, an informal group that grew out of the Black Socks String Band that once jammed every week at the Whiting Village Store. They weren't musicians themselves, though Lorraine liked to sing and Wayne once acquired a "canjo," a soda can with a stick. They got to know Alan Furth, a banjo player and leader of the "Music Circle," as the regulars called themselves. He and others, including Wayne and Lorraine, began talking about the need for a community education center. Over several years, the conversation developed into a vision that combined elements of several models for lifelong learning. Eventually, the vision became a reality when the Cobscook Community Learning Center (CCLC) opened in Trescott in 2004, with Furth as director.

Wayne and Lorraine were devoted volunteers at CCLC from the beginning, putting in "hundreds of hours on our first timber frame building," says Furth. Later the couple became paid employees under ABLE, a funded program for seniors who provide community services. "You can't visit the center today," Furth adds, "without seeing their contributions everywhere you look." Except when Wayne's health problems intervened, the couple were dedicated workers there for six years, up to the day before their death. Lorraine told her daughters she waited 'til she was 70 for the right job to come along.

They rarely missed the Monday night Music Circle. At the memorial last week, 23 of the musicians – with their banjos, guitars, fiddles, trumpet, concertina, harmonica and voices – honored their friends with some of the music they loved: "Amazing Grace," "This Little Light of Mine," "Bury Me in My Overalls," "You Are My Sunshine," "Will the Circle Be Unbroken?," "I'll Give You a Daisy a Day," "I'm Just a Pilgrim on this Road," "Boys," "When the Saints Go Marching In," among others.

As the program was ending, the Rices' daughters reminded everyone how much their parents loved to dance. With the band playing, they invited couples to take the floor for the slow dance. The lyrics might have been written for Wayne and Lorraine: "Could I have this dance for the rest of my life. Would you be my partner every night. When we're together it feels so right. Could I have this dance for the rest of my life."