We mourn the loss of our dear mother Lorraine Powers on Tuesday, October 9th, 2012 at the Wolfeboro Bay Care Home in Wolfeboro New Hampshire. Lorraine passed away peacefully in the presence of her children, who are comforted in knowing that she has found relief from her illness and has gone to join her daughters Michelle and Elaine, her parents George and Lorraine and her brother Luster and her sister Joanne in heaven.
Lorraine Alice Delany was born to George B and Lorraine A Delany on May 23, 1931 at the Boston Lying In Hospital. She grew up in Brighton, then Chestnut Hill, and attended the Mount Alvernia Catholic Girls School in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts. At school, she was a precocious student and basketball player, and graduated early with academic distinction in history.
Lorraine pursued her history studies at Boston University, where she pledged with Pi Beta Phi, and organized the first women’s Powder Puff touch football team. She graduated BU in three years, and became a school teacher in the Boston suburbs. Other studies included law school and opera singing.
While skiing at Mt Cranmore in New Hampshire, Lorraine met Howard A Powers, a mechanical engineer at General Electric in Framingham, Mass.
They married in 1953 and settled in Medfield, Mass, where they built a house and raised three boys and then four girls. The third girl, Elaine, died as a toddler of brain cancer, and was long mourned.
Our mother had a tremendous enthusiasm for life and was never long content at rest. She loved to organize outings, and took us skating, then skiing, which became a lifelong shared passion for the family.
She went to the beach any chance she got, and was still boogie-boarding in her 60’s.
Lorraine had a compassion that went beyond her family to include our friends and we would like especially to remember the love she shared with Don Phipps and Angela Smith our brother and sister in mourning.
Aside from raising six devoted children and seeing them through college, Lorraine helped to support the family in several occupations, including sales positions, and managing a photocopy leasing office in Boston. She found pleasure in her work, and loved to tell stories about her customers and co-workers at dinner. Above all, our mother taught us to love and to laugh. Nothing will replace her in this world, but we will honor her memory as long as we love and laugh together.
Lorraine had a sister, Joanne, and a brother Luster, who predeceased her. She lost her second daughter, Michelle in 2011. She is survived by her children, Christopher, Laurence, George, Juliette Wilcox, and Noelle Dearborn as well as their respective spouses, Jill, Lucha, Annette, Rich and Mark as well as 13 grandchildren. She is also survived by her nephew Luster-Elias Delany, and her niece (by Joanne) Valerie Pasquine.
A Mass of Christian Burial will be celebrated in St Lawrence Church 774 Boylston St. Brookline, (Chestnut Hill) on Friday, October 12th at 10:00am. Relatives and friends are invited to attend. Interment St. Joseph Cemetery, West Roxbury. www.lawlerfuneralhome.com
Lawler and Crosby Funeral Home
617-323-5600