ROCKPORT, Maine — Hope Elephants co-founder Dr. James Laurita was remembered Saturday afternoon as a man who lived life the way it should be lived.
“He filled his cup up,” Laurita’s brother, Tom Laurita, said. “It was right to the brim. He was doing everything he wanted to do. He had a wife he loved, he had the sons he wanted, he had the elephants. He was living his dream.”
Laurita, 56, who with his brother, Tom, founded the refuge for retired circus elephants, died suddenly Tuesday morning in the barn where he worked with his beloved Asian elephants, Rosie and Opal.
Family and friends shared memories of “Jimmy” Laurita with more than 700 mourners — many members of what Tom Laurita referred to as “the Jimmy Club — who crowded the ballroom and overflow rooms at The Samoset Resort on Saturday afternoon for a public memorial service.
“He was a wonderful guy, and I loved him deeply, but we’re not talking about Saint Jim here,” Tom Laurita said. “He wasn’t perfect. But he did achieve a level of perfection in his life between what his ideals were and how he led his life.”
Siblings smiled, recalling Laurita’s penchant for nicknaming them, sharing some that are better left in the Samoset ballroom. They also remembered their brother’s unique style of dress and the way he always smelled of the elephants he worked with.
As young men, James Laurita and Tom Laurita worked with the Carson & Barnes Circus as jugglers, and were also assigned to work with elephants. There they met Rosie and Opal. Laurita later worked as an elephant trainer, and then traveled to India to work with elephants there.
In 2011, Rosie and Opal, each in their 40s, retired from performing due to significant health problems. At first they went to the Endangered Ark Foundation in Hugo, Oklahoma, after leaving the circus, but after Laurita and his brother raised funds and built the elephant refuge in Hope, the two elephants came to Maine.
And then, Tom Laurita said, “Like all of you in ‘The Jimmy Club,’ we got a shovel and started shoveling elephant crap.”
Laurita offered the animals “revolutionary” care when they came to Maine in 2012, friends said Saturday.
Most of all, family and friends remembered Laurita’s compassion, for people and the animals he loved.
Tom Laurita remembered his brother’s penchant for sharing Thanksgiving dinner with people “who didn’t have a place to go.”
“Everybody wanted to be close to Jimmy,” his sister, Annie, said. “He was so special.”
“He went out on top,” Tom Laurita said.
Bangor Daily News writer Abigail Curtis contributed to this report.