Lorraine Bernice Bernadette Bergeron Sylvia Earle — also known as Lorraine Earle, Rainy, Mama Cupcakes and LoLo — died peacefully at home in Hull on Jan. 29 after a long battle with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and lung cancer. She was 68.
She died surrounded by family holding her hands while playing and singing her favorite songs. In the days leading up to her death, she would light up like a slot machine when her grandchildren visited, despite how much pain she was in.
Lorraine was a hippie, feminist, artist, adventurer and a selfless person.
She was born and raised on Martha’s Vineyard to a single mother after her French-Canadian father — Eugene Bergeron — left her Portuguese-American mother — Hilda Antunes Bergeron — at a young age. As children, Lorraine and her siblings grew up on welfare and worked multiple jobs to keep the lights on. This experience shaped her work ethic, imagination, compassion and unique perspective.
As a young teenager trying to help at home, she held a myriad of jobs on Martha’s Vineyard: coin diving; working at the Harbor View Hotel, Vineyard Nursing Home, Vineyard Villa Hotel, Mansion House, Edgartown Gift and Garden, Roseby Gardens, Edgartown Deli and as a Black Dog Café breakfast cook, to name a few.
She graduated in 1974 from Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School and then from Fisher College in 1985 with an associate’s degree in business management.
In between those years she went on road trips, lived in Allston and worked at Suffolk Superior Courthouse while she put herself through college. She worked at Sally & Fitch law firm in Boston as an office manager paralegal for more than two decades before leaving to work with her son’s T-shirt brand, Johnny Cupcakes, as chief financial officer.
As a team, Lorraine and her children opened hundreds of Johnny Cupcakes pop-up shops, won several retail awards and were able to work with dozens of charities. The family business allowed them to spend more time together than most families. Lorraine loved her children and often said she was so proud she could feel her heart beating outside of her chest.
At her prime she was on top of the world with her candlepin bowling league, the garden club, the Hull artists group, teaching seashell art alongside her daughter, winning awards at craft fairs, clothing the homeless, attending concerts, winning Halloween costume contests, traveling, kayaking, volunteering at Hull’s Sunset Point Camp, supporting the DJ Henry Dream Fund Gala and picking enough blueberries to fill her freezer up for the year so that she could make her famous blueberry pancakes.
She loved life. She was life. And she was a light for so many people. She often said, “being kind is free.”
Lorraine is survived by her partner Patrick Averill, her son John Earle and his wife Katie Freketic and their daughters Austin and Stevie, and her daughter Linsay Schauwecker and her husband Nick Schauwecker and their son Hudson; her siblings Donna Montesion and her husband Edward, Eugene Bergeron and his wife Beverly, and Linda Vancour and her husband Steve. She is also survived by several nieces, nephews, cousins and the father of her children, Mike Earle.
Her wake will be held on Friday, Feb. 16 from 4:20 to 8 p.m. at Pyne Keohane Funeral Home in Hingham. Her funeral mass will behld on Saturday, Feb. 17 at 10 a.m. at Saint Ann’s Church, also known as St. Mary of the Assumption Parish, in Hull. A celebration of life party will follow.
Memorial contributions may be made to the DJ Henry Dream Fund at djdreamfund.charityproud.org/Donate or Sunset Point Camp at ccab.org/ways-to-give/donate.
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