HAMPDEN – Arletta Rice passed away quietly on March 9, 2005, at Westgate Manor in Bangor. She was born on Oct. 4, 1922 in Christmas Cove to Willard N. and Kathleen (Geyer) Thorpe. Arletta attended Oak Grove School in Vassalboro and graduated from the University of Maine at Orono, Class of 1944. She served proudly as a pharmacist’s mate in the Navy WAVES from 1944 to 1946. She worked as a medical secretary in Boston after World War II, where she met her husband, Ken. They married in August 1952. Arletta and Ken settled in Townsend, Mass. and raised their two children there. Arletta worked as the secretary at Spalding Elementary School in Townsend before becoming a 6th grade English teacher, a job in which she took great pride for 11 years. Arletta and Ken retired in 1979 to her family’s home in Christmas Cove and wintered in Jekyll Island, Ga. for 15 years. Arletta loved the seashore and was grateful to be able to enjoy both ends of the East Coast. She was an enthusiastic tennis player, an avid quilter and a dedicated member of the Edgecomb Unitarian Universalist Fellowship. Arletta is survived by her devoted husband of 52 years, Ken, and her children, Mark S. Rice and his wife, Kym of Brinklow, Md. and Rebecca Rice and her sidekick, Jimmy Barnes of Mariaville. She took great pride in her 5 grandchildren, Stacey Okerman of Ft. Myers, Fla., Benjamin King of Southwest Harbor, with whom she shared her birthday, Jacob King of Catonsville, Md., Isaac King of Ft. Myers, Fla. and Claire Rice of Brinklow, Md. There will be a celebration of Arletta’s life later this spring in South Bristol. In lieu of donations, Arletta would wish that we all spend some extra moments appreciating our fami-lies and the world around us.
ARLETTA N. (THORPE) RICE
