LINCOLNVILLE, Maine — Eugene and Virginia Dyer, who died over the weekend in a fire at their house, were high school sweethearts who lived in a part of Lincolnville called “Dyerville” because so many of their family members lived so close together.
Daniel Dyer, their son, is among the Dyers who live in Dyerville. He was napping at his home when a friend called on Saturday night to say that something bad was happening over at his parents’ house. The roads were blocked by all the emergency responders, so Daniel took his truck on the four-wheeler trails they’d built on the property to go to the house on Virginia Lane.
“I knew it was bad,” Daniel Dyer said Monday, adding that when he got there his parents were already dead. “I was trying to prepare myself. It’s a very, very sad thing to see.”
The Dyers, better known as Gene, 81, and Ginny, 79, perished from smoke inhalation, according to a news release issued Monday by the Maine Department of Public Safety. The cause of the fire cannot be determined because of the extensive damage, but investigators with the Maine state fire marshal’s office said it began in a storage-entry area between the house and the garage.
“The fire has been ruled undetermined, but there is nothing to indicate it is anything other than an accident,” Stephen McCausland, spokesman for the Department of Public Safety, said in the media release.
Fire and medical personnel found the Dyers inside and rescued them from the building, but were unable to resuscitate them, he said. So far this year, 12 people in Maine have died in fires.
It is terrible for Lincolnville that two of their own have joined those sad ranks, according to Selectman Rosey Gerry.
“The whole town is just absolutely devastated by this,” he said Monday. “They were a great family. This is a tragedy for the town. It’s just horrible.”
Daniel Dyer said that his parents were salt-of-the-earth Mainers who worked hard and loved their family. On that last day, they had gone to the wedding of a great-granddaughter and “had a great day,” he said. That night, it seems that his father got up and tried to get his mother out of bed during the fire, but fell down and may have had a heart attack.
His father was a jack-of-all trades who hadn’t fully retired yet, Daniel Dyer said.
“He could do electrical. He could do plumbing. He could do all the things you need,” the son said. “He was still working at 81.”
Nadine Dyer, their daughter-in-law, lived very close, and was very close, to Gene and Ginny Dyer. Two days after the fire, the acrid smell of burning had dissipated and the emergency workers had long gone. Gene and Ginny Dyer’s house was a burned-out shell that seemed surreal in the bright August sunshine.
“They were like my second parents,” Nadine Dyer said after going into her home to find a photograph of the couple. “They considered me their daughter, and not a daughter-in-law. They were very family-oriented.”
Gene Dyer had been the caretaker for a seasonal camp in Searsmont since the early 1970s, and he still worked building bunk beds and doing other things to keep the structure sound.
“Any job they asked, he got it done,” Daniel Dyer said.
His mother, Ginny, had been a stay-at-home mom to the couple’s children, and also took care of her husband.
“He was old-fashioned,” Daniel Dyer said. “He would work all week and eat out of a lunch bucket all week. Come Saturday, he wanted a real meal at noon. He was demanding in his own ways, but he was really sweet. He loved my mom.”