Obituary
Ronald E. Paquette, 88, of Pawtucket, RI, passed away surrounded by his family on Wednesday, August 7, 2024, at the Hattie Ide Chaffee Home in East Providence, RI. He spent many moons in the same canoe with his wife, Elaine R. (Battles) Paquette.
Born and raised in Central Falls, RI, on September 21, 1935, Ronald was a son of the late J. Armand and Irene F. (Boisclair) Paquette. He and his siblings, Armand, Leo, Claire, Lorraine, Collette and Conrad, lived on Broad Street adjacent to their father’s business, Armand’s Beauty Shoppe. Ron spent his formative years in Canada, in school and working during the summer on his uncle’s dairy farm. At his all-boys Catholic high school, dad played aggressively in varsity football and won a letter, baseball, hockey and basketball. He also won a top award in public speaking and enjoyed the performing arts where he stepped up to play the Evil Queen in a performance of Snow White. After high school, he went to McLean Hospital and Mass General Hospital and became a registered nurse. Consequently, it was there, in Boston, where he met another young nursing student, Elaine Battles, from Vermont.
Ron and Elaine were married on April 12, 1958, began their family of nine children and saw their family expand: Michael (Patricia) Paquette, Denise (Fred, Jr.) LaPrade, James (Patricia) Paquette, Monique (Scott) Ryan, Thomas Paquette (Joe McConnaughey), Danielle (Steven) Pray, Renee (Mike) Patenaude, Matthew (Melissa) Paquette, and Nicole Paquette (partner Gary Kirsch). Some of dad’s very last thoughts were about his grandchildren “tell me about the grandchildren”. He was pepere to: Keith (Robyn) Paquette, Jonathan Paquette, Adrienne (Jeremy) Vaughn, Anne-Marie (Mike) Chirieleison, Sr. Jeanne d’Arc, F.S.E., Joe (Meg) Paquette, Grace Paquette (boyfriend Jack Nelson), Alyssa LaPrade (fiancée Diana Zagales), Rebecca LaPrade (fiancé Victor Castillo), Doug Ryan, Ken Ryan, Emilie Pray, Quinton Pray, Rachelle Patenaude, Jacqueline Patenaude, Mike Patenaude, Mason Paquette, Madelyn Paquette, Salem Granados and Crichton Granados; Great-Pepere to: Penny, Allie, Gabby, Paige and Rosie; he was friend, cousin, brother-in-law, and Uncle Ronny to many.
For most of Ronald’s career, he was the owner and administrator of the former Paquette Home, Inc., a 30-bed care facility in Central Falls that had been expanded and converted from his childhood home and his father’s beauty shoppe. At the age of 23, and just three months shy of graduating with a degree in Business Administration from Bryant College, Ron had accepted the responsibility to take over his mother’s nursing home business, Paquette Nursing Home. Together with his wife, he owned and operated the Paquette Rest Home, as it later evolved to, until their retirement in 2000. The family business was an integral part of our and Ron’s daily lives for decades. We are thankful for the many employees who had worked with us side-by-side, day and night, and the many residents who we were honored to care for. They were all a part of our “second home”, who enriched our lives, especially long-time employee, the late Irene Messina, LPN, the late Al LaPierre, accountant, and many dedicated others.
Ron was a faithful Roman Catholic, who prayed the rosary daily and valued Catholic school education. He made sure his brood received their Sacraments and attended Sunday Mass at the former St. Maria Goretti Church, in Pawtucket, where he was active on several committees and sang with the choir.
With great fondness, we recall his humor and creative sides. In particular, dad was a gifted storyteller of frightening tales that he made up- complete with evil cackles, shrieks and dramatic pauses. Someone in the family assembled a haunted house kit which was, and still is, within an easy arm’s reach for those unexpected emergencies. Dad was also an expert at getting pesky bats out of the house too. Besides his unusual skills with bats and ghosts, he liked parlor games, and was an avid outdoorsman who enjoyed camping, fishing, quahogging/clamming, hunting duck, pheasant and deer, and building treehouses, forts, the cabin, the model train table, and annual ice-skating rinks in the backyard. His culinary specialty, “hunter’s delight”, was either a hit or an unfortunate miss when mom had to work late.
Throughout different periods of his life, Ron enjoyed being a Cub and Boy Scouts leader (all four of his sons were boy scouts), a ham radio operator, a Masonic brother, Lions Club International member and Melvin Jones Fellow, and singing with the Les Gais Chanteurs of Pawtucket, just to name a few. We learned to appreciate and care for fauna and flora, from him and our mother. Our home, despite so many children, was continuously shared with a multitude of dogs, cats, birds, hamsters, fish, amphibians, and even a skunk. He frequently loaded the family up in the van just to take a long drive for ice-cream, walk with the dogs, Cara and Caesar, and later Heidi and Hilda, visit Colt State Park, take the sailboat or canoe to Lincoln Woods, or to visit the Foote, Maxwell or Battles relatives in Massachusetts and Vermont, where many family reunions were held.
Cherished holidays, celebrations and good family times were spent with local family too –Memere and Pepere’s in Central Falls, the Gingras’ at their former Fairlawn Junction restaurant and ice-cream parlour, the Paquette’s, the Rainville’s, and the Boisclair families. He loved vanilla ice-cream, farm-fresh silver queen corn-on-the-cob, steamers and stuffies, Manhattan-style clam chowder, French meat pie (his mother’s recipe and a traditional meal during the holidays), fresh-popped popcorn made with hot oil over the stove, toy model building, sudoku puzzles, and the Canadiens Men’s Ice Hockey team. He enjoyed day-trips and knew where, and visited with his wife, most of the used bookstores in New England. Despite being a strict disciplinarian, dad was quite spontaneous with a generous heart and spirit. He once brought home seven French international students after a Lions Club event because they had nowhere to stay for the night. After all, what was another seven more people in the house when you already had nine kids? For several years during the summer months, he made sure that we hosted Lions Club international students in our home. We had students from Japan, Belgium, and Germany.
Ron loved history and diligently researched family genealogy. He took it upon himself to personally research the American Revolutionary lines of his wife’s genealogy which enabled his wife, daughters and granddaughters to become members of the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR). He was especially proud of his French-Canadian heritage and could trace direct descendants who were killed/taken captive during the massacre and raid on Deerfield (MA) on February 29, 1704, and also from the Lewis and Clark Expedition. His vast knowledge of our family’s ancestry, coupled with his ability to instantly recall dates, names, and facts, made him a walking history book. His ancestral knowledge was frequently demonstrated with a long bilingual story about someone named “Charbonneau”. Dad’s thirst for education was truly endless. During his mid-years, he and his wife, Elaine, enrolled in college once again “just for fun” and subsequently, acquired additional degrees. We were pretty sure that the college ran out of degrees for them.
Dad was also a musician who enjoyed singing and playing the organ, accordion, harmonica, and especially the piano, a pleasure he continued late in life despite failing eyesight from type II diabetes. He arranged for all of his children to be instructed in the musical arts and, for several of them, he personally composed piano pieces such as, “Battles Brook”, “Matthew’s March” and “Nicole’s Music Box”. The playing of, and listening to music remained throughout Ron’s lifetime. With the addition of Amazon’s Alexa, a good song from Eddie Arnold or Slim Whitman, like the “Indian Love Call”, could be heard on any given day. Often, Alexa had difficulty understanding dad’s hybrid French-Canadian/RI accent, and as a result, would randomly play any song just to silence him. He also enjoyed quality movies, especially Western cowboy movies, was savvy with current topics and events, and enjoyed reading. His last book was in French, about Saint Isaac Jogues, a French Jesuit missionary priest and martyr during the 17th century who became one of the Patron Saints of North America. Jogues is considered a saint for those who have faced life’s challenges, of which dad indeed saw his share of.
Together with our mother, Elaine, whom shared 66 years of marriage with our father, it is indeed with heavy hearts to bid adieu to our patriarch. We do believe that as the last in his family to pass, he has arrived to take his seat at a lively ”high-low jack”, penny-betting card game in heaven with those who predeceased him: his parents, siblings: Armand, Leo, Claire, Lorraine, Collette and Conrad, cousin Norman, Uncle Maurice and Aunt Lu, God-children Charlene and Michael, nieces and nephews Caroline, Jackie, Leo, Mark, and Ivan, sisters-in-law Jenny and Judy, brothers-in-law Lloyd, Dale, and Eddy, Sr., dear family friend Paul Martin who was “like a son”, and many more deceased aunts, uncles, cousins, and friends, not to mention the scores of ancestors (maybe even this Charbonneau fellow), whom he never met but researched so carefully and tirelessly. In the quietness of our minds, we can hear the “Cattle Call” by Eddy Arnold softly playing now. Godspeed Dad. Nous vous recommandons à Dieu.
Family and friends are kindly invited to join Ronald’s family to say good-bye at the Manning-Heffern O’Neill Funeral Home, 220 Cottage Street, Pawtucket, RI on Sunday, August 11th, from 2:00-4:00 PM. A Mass of Christian Burial will be held on Monday, August 12th, at 11:00 AM in St. Raymond’s Church, 1240 N. Main St., Providence, RI. Burial will be held on Tuesday, August 13th, at 1:00 PM, near his wife’s family in the Mountain View Cemetery, VT-12A, Braintree, VT.
We would like to extend our gratitude and thanks to the entire staff of the Hattie Ide Chaffee Home for their concern and care of our dad.
The Manning-Heffern O’Neill Funeral Home, 220 Cottage Street, Pawtucket, RI, is in charge of the arrangements.
Please click here to view an online memorial tribute video of Ron, courtesy of the Alderson-Ford Funeral Homes, Inc. Cheshire, CT.
In memory of Ron, contributions may be made to the American Diabetes Association, PO Box 7023, Merrifield, MA 22116-7023.
