Rolande Cloutier

YARMOUTHPORT — Rolande (Lanoue) Cloutier, of Yarmouthport, and beloved wife of Wilfrid A. Cloutier, M.D., of 59 years, passed away at home surrounded by her loving family, on Friday, June 13, 2008, after a very long illness.

Born on June 19, 1923, in St-Blaise near Montreal, Canada, the ninth of nine daughters and then one son, of Joseph and Josephine (Rainville) Lanoue. She has three surviving sisters, all from greater Montreal: Alice LeTellier, Helene Charlton and Sister Lucienne Lanoue.

She graduated from Ecole Normale (Teacher's College) Jacques Cartier in Montreal, valedictorian of her class. She taught for seven years at the Victor Dore School for disabled children (mostly polio victims).

On July 23, 1949, she married Wilfrid Cloutier, a month after his graduation from Laval Medical School. They lived in Quebec City during his year of surgical training and then in New York City for his continued training. For two of those years in New York City, she lived alone and worked at Chemical Bank while her husband served in the chest surgical service at Tokyo Army Hospital, attending victims of the Korean War.

In July 1957, they moved to Lewiston, Maine, and until July 1990, she managed a myriad of details as office manager of her husband's surgical practice, all while raising their family of six daughters and one son. In May 1998, they moved to Yarmouthport, where they enjoyed 10 more years of retirement together in the King's Way community. She possessed a lifelong love of learning and was a voracious reader on topics of all kinds throughout her retirement.

Throughout the years, she and her devoted husband also traveled and collected many happy memories all over the world.

She is survived by her daughters, Louise Cloutier of Evanston, Ill., Pauline (Mark) Philie of East Sandwich, Gisele Cloutier of Falls Church, Va., Suzanne (Jon) Greene of Belchertown, Marie (Brigham Young) Cloutier of Leominster, and Lisa (Eric) Brown of Medfield; and her son, Robert Cloutier, of Ellicott City, Md.

She also delighted in and is survived by her nine grandchildren, Elizabeth Diflo, Ryan and Christine Gentes, Michelle Philie, Hannah and George Mayberry, Griffin and Noah Brown, and Wesley Young, as well as many nieces and nephews from Montreal, Quebec and Lewiston, Maine.

She was an elegant and brilliant lady of many talents and deep piety, but it was her humble, caring, devoted and compassionate way that made her beloved by all, including all the patients she met and helped during her husband's 34 years of surgical practice in Lewiston, Maine, and by her many friends wherever she lived, including King's Way in Yarmouthport. She will be dearly missed by all.

Calling hours will be held on Tuesday, June 17, from 4 to 7 p.m., at the Morris & O'Connor Funeral Home, 58 Long Pond Drive, South Yarmouth. A Mass of Christian burial will be held on Wednesday, June 18, at 10 a.m., at St. Pius X Church, Station Avenue, South Yarmouth. Interment will follow at Chandler Gray Cemetery.

Donations in her memory may be made to the American Heart Association, 375 Main St., Hyannis, MA 02601, or to the Hospice & Palliative Care of Cape Cod, 760 Attucks Lane, Hyannis, MA 0260l, www.hospicecapecod.org.

For guest book, visit www.MorrisOConnor.com.