Lois Soule, 86, died peacefully in the hospital on January 14, 2024 following a brief illness.
Born Lois Madeline Dane in Orange, New Jersey on September 28, 1937 to Anna Madeline Noyes and Charles Murphy Dane, MD, she was their only and much-beloved child. Lois graduated from the Beard School in 1953 and from Wellesley College in 1957. At both schools she found lifelong friends who became the sisters she never had. In particular, she and Nancy Slover Stehle had many grand adventures together, starting with a summer science camp in Wyoming, one of Lois’ most treasured life experiences. Years later, Nancy Stehle led a big group of tenderfeet, including all four Soules, on a backpacking trip along the first section of the Appalachian Trail, starting at Katahdin.
After graduating with a degree in Geology, Lois moved to Washington, DC with college friends. She was hired to work at the National Geologic Survey Institute magazine by another Wellesley grad, Anne Coates Sangree, a mentor who also became a lifelong friend.
While viewing a potential apartment for her group of friends, Lois met the current tenants–a group of young men, one of whom was Bill Soule. After the men moved out and Lois and friends moved in, Bill made sure to follow up with the lovely Lois. As she tells the story, he would call her up just to remind her how the broiler worked, and she would say, “yes, yes, yes.” One day he called and said, “Would you like to go on a date?” And she said, “yes, yes, yes.” They enjoyed Washington, especially participating in community theater musicals and variety shows with the Hexagon Club.
Lois and Bill became engaged in 1961 and were married at Lois’ family home in South Orange on July 21, 1962. Their first child, Helen, was born in DC in 1965. In 1966, Bill completed his graduate degree and accepted a position on the faculty of the University of Maine, so the family moved to Orono. They were immediately welcomed by University colleagues (and their wives) and became very active in the community. In 1969, they welcomed daughter Nancy. While Lois was a bit disappointed that she couldn’t find meaningful work and still manage two small children at home, she threw herself into volunteering.
Lois held leadership positions in the Junior League of Bangor and the National League of Women Voters, and volunteered with and/or supported the Natural Resources Council of Maine, Symphony Women, AAUW and the University’s Thursday Club, Girl Scouts of Maine, the Bangor Humane Society, Episcopal Church Women, PEO, and the Frenchman Bay Conservancy. She particularly enjoyed performing plays with the Theatre of the Enchanted Forest (in local schools) and Shakespeare Club (in local drawing rooms). When she occasionally traveled to attend conferences, Bill gamely took on the household duties in her absence. She loved that her volunteer work had the side benefit of socialization for her children. While the women were meeting, all the kids would be sent to another room and told to “get along, or else!”
Together, Lois and Bill attended campus and community events, fundraisers, galas and grand openings, book signings, lectures and Senior College classes, costume parties, potlucks, and dinner dances and acquired a vast network of friends. It all culminated in their annual Christmas Open House, an all-hands-on-deck production fully orchestrated, catered, and directed by Lois, and enjoyed by many over the decades.
The family first attended church at the Episcopal Chapel in Orono, where Nancy was baptized, and Fr. Ted Lewis and family became lifelong friends (even after the Lewises moved out of state). They subsequently were parishioners at St. James in Old Town, where Helen was confirmed, and finally settled at St. John’s Episcopal Church in Bangor. The whole family joined Fred Jones’ choir and were truly blessed to be trained by that remarkable musician. Lois, Bill, and Nancy had the great good fortune to go on several St. John’s choir trips and sing services at noteworthy cathedrals throughout the UK. Through choir, they made many dear friends, including the “ABC group” ( altos, basses, and a clarinetist!).
During Bill’s sabbatical year in Amherst, Massachusetts in 1979-80, Lois went back to work as church secretary for the Unitarian Church. The whole family enjoyed the Amherst community and formed many lasting friendships there. Returning to Orono with nearly-grown daughters and eight years of college tuition bills on the horizon, Lois decided to pursue a career in real estate.
After diligent study, she earned her real estate license and became an agent with the ERA Bradford company in Orono. After decades of volunteer work, Lois was well-known and trusted by a whole rolodex of friends and she enjoyed showing houses and trying to make the right match for home-seekers. Some properties were a challenge to sell, but Mr. Bradford always reminded her “for every Jack there is a Jill” and she worked hard to bring them together.
Later, looking for more regular hours, Lois retired her real estate license and took a position as secretary at the law firm of Curtis & Griffin (now Griffin & Jordan). As a teenager, Lois had an uncle who suggested that she go to secretarial school and presented her with some study books. Lois flung the books across the room and proclaimed, “I will NEVER be a secretary!” Never say never…Lois loved working at Curtis & Griffin, and they loved her. When she eventually retired, her colleagues, particularly Mike Griffin and the much-missed Kerry Jordan, remained dear friends.
Lois loved to travel, and especially loved to plan trips. In 1977, she planned a two-month family summer road trip in a small Winnebago to attend a cousin’s wedding in Idaho. She mapped out a route (twice, due to a date change!) tracing a huge figure eight, visiting far-flung friends and relatives and countless national parks and monuments, seeing the country literally from sea to shining sea. It was a grand adventure!
In the 90s, Lois, Bill, and Helen traced Lois’ family roots in Nova Scotia and continued on to visit dear friends in PEI; and on another trip, Lois and Helen ventured to Minnesota with the Betsy-Tacy Society – a fan group for a series of beloved children’s books.
For her 55th birthday, she and her Wellesley sister, Nancy Stehle, cooked up a plan and drove a full-size commercial moving truck from Maine to Boulder, Colorado, where Stehle had recently relocated and where Helen had recently moved on a whim to live with Stehle. The pair also traveled together with their Wellesley gang (and spouses) to England on a couple of occasions, once self-piloting a narrowboat on the canals.
In retirement, Lois went all out, leveraging time shares and Elderhostel tours into epic adventures. She and Bill spent a couple of months Down Under, exploring Australia and participating in a Habitat for Humanity home build in New Zealand. On another trip, they spent almost a month in Alaska on ferries, trains, and planes, retracing Lois’ grandfather’s route in his search for gold in the late 1880s. (Spoiler – neither he nor they hit the mother lode.) They also explored Hawaii with friends and attended a folk arts institute in the Blue Ridge mountains, and visited friends in Florida on several occasions.
Lois even served as last-minute substitute tour leader for a Bangor Symphony trip to London and Paris once. She was nervous but rose to the occasion to help a friend.
In addition to travel, Lois had many loves. First and forever was her husband Bill, and especially ballroom dancing with him. She loved her daughters and raised them to be resilient, independent, and loving; and she perpetually admonished them not to fight and to be grateful for having a sibling! She enjoyed her four grandchildren who loved their Nana and her many entertaining quirks, including her habit of creating unique aphorisms which the family treasured and collected as “Loisisms”.
Lois was a good driver (with a bit of a lead foot) and enjoyed it. Traffic lights magically turned green for her and she always thanked them. She often sang snippets of show tunes at home and enjoyed singing in the choir, although she never gave herself enough credit for her strong clear alto. She enjoyed knitting, needlepoint, reading, doing crosswords, puzzles, and playing solitaire, gardening and nature. As a geologist, she was fascinated by rocks and taught her children to search for treasures. Lois loved taking walks around town, at their beloved summer place in Hancock, and later to the ponds at Dirigo Pines to watch the ducks and pet everyone’s dogs (especially their soft floppy ears). She reminisced often about the series of Boston terriers she had as a child. She became a cat person when she and Bill adopted Tigger together in 1961, the start of a long line of distinguished felines who had the good fortune to find a home with the Soules. Lois and Bill enjoyed attending the symphony, the opera, the ballet, plays, musicals, and traveling performances, and were devoted supporters of their children’s and grandchildren’s performances and recitals.
Lois was a planner and a doer and very social. She lived life with joy and enthusiasm and touched many lives. She is greatly missed, but we are so glad she is with her beloved Bill again.
Lois was predeceased by her parents, by many dear friends, and by her husband of 61 years. She is survived by her daughters Helen Soule Donahey (Rich), Nancy Soule Marks (Alan), and by grandchildren Jamie, Charlie, and Josephine Marks, and Samantha Donahey; by niece and nephews Jane Engert, William Engert, and Jamie Engert (Lise Coderre and great-niece Catherine); by her Wellesley sister Mars Fletcher; and by her cousin Maryanne Winsky White Pelletier (and her son George White and family); and by many devoted caregivers including Kerry Latlippe.
In their last years, both Lois and Bill were fortunate to be supported in their own home by devoted and compassionate care from the Visiting Angels of Bangor, who live up to their name.
A memorial service for Lois Dane Soule of Orono will be held at 11 am on Saturday, July 20, 2024 at St. John’s Episcopal Church, 225 French Street in Bangor. Friends and family are also welcome to a reception at Buchanan Alumni House at 160 College Avenue in Orono from 12:30 - 2:30 pm.
Interment will be private, but please visit Lois & Bill’s bench at Riverside cemetery in Orono any time. They’d hospitably urge you to take a seat and enjoy the view.
Arrangements are with Brookings-Smith.
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