Obituary: Lorraine Earle

Lorraine Earle, at 68

Lorraine Bernice Bernadette Bergeron Sylvia Earle (also known as “Rainy,” “Mama Cupcakes,” and “LoLo”) passed away peacefully at home in Hull on January 29, 2024 after a long battle with COPD and lung cancer. She was 68.

She was surrounded by family holding her hands, while playing and singing her favorite songs as she passed. In the days leading up to this, as much pain as Mrs. Earle was in, she would light up like a slot machine when her grandchildren visited.

Mrs. Earle was a hippie, a feminist, an artist, an adventurer, and a selfless person who was born and raised on Martha’s Vineyard to a single mother after her French Canadian father, Eugene Bergeron, left her Portuguese-American mother, Hilda Antunes Bergeron, at a young age. As kids, Mrs. Earle and her siblings grew up on welfare, working multiple jobs to keep the lights on. This experience shaped her work ethic, imagination, compassion, and unique perspective. During the summers when the steamships of tourists arrived, Lorraine, Donna, Eugene, and Linda would dive for coins in Vineyard Haven, singing, “How ‘bout a coin? How ‘bout a coin down here!,” filling up their mouths with money that tourists would flick off of the ships.

As a young teenager trying to help at home, she held myriad jobs on Martha’s Vineyard at the Harborview Hotel, Vineyard Nursing Home, Vineyard Villa Hotel, Mansion House, The Black Dog Café (breakfast cook), Edgartown Gift and Garden, Rosebay Gardens, and Edgartown Deli, to name a few. She graduated in 1974 from Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School and from Fisher College in 1985 with an associate’s in business management.

In between those years, she went on road trips, lived in Allston, and worked at Suffolk Superior Courthouse while she put herself through college. She worked at Sally & Fitch law firm in Boston as an office manager and paralegal for more than two decades before leaving to work with her son’s T-shirt brand, Johnny Cupcakes, as the CFO for two decades. As a team, Mrs. Earle and her children opened hundreds of Johnny Cupcakes pop-up shops, won several retail awards, and were able to work with dozens of charities. Mrs. Earle loved her children and often said she was so proud she could feel her heart beating outside of her chest.

At her prime, she was on top of the world, being active on her candlepin bowling league, the garden club, the Hull artists group, teaching seashell art to kids and adults, winning various awards at craft fairs, clothing the homeless, attending concerts, winning costume contests year after year at Halloween parties, traveling, kayaking, volunteering at Hull’s Sunset Point Camp, supporting the DJ Henry Dream Fund Gala was everything to her, and picking enough blueberries to fill up her freezer for the year so that she could make her famous blueberry pancakes. She loved life. She was life. And she was a light for so many people.

“Being kind is free” is what Mrs. Earle would often say. Remember this, and please spread kindness on her behalf. Remember Lorraine when you see seashells and seaglass, when you hear birds chirp, when you listen to reggae music, when you wear your Johnny Cupcakes T-shirt, when you eat blueberries or pancakes or blueberry pancakes, when you’re eating Portuguese fried dough or kale soup, when you’re at the beach, when you’re celebrating holidays, especially Christmas and Halloween.

Lorraine Earle is survived by her partner, Patrick Averill; her son John Earle and his wife, Katie Freketic, and their daughters Austin and Stevie; her daughter Linsay Schauwecker and her husband, Nick Schauwecker, and their son Hudson; her siblings Donna Montesion and her husband, Edward, Eugene Bergeron and his wife, Beverly, and Linda Vancour and her husband, Steve. She is survived by several nieces, nephews, cousins, and the father of her children, Mike Earle.

Mrs. Earle’s wake will be held on Friday, February 16, from 4:20 p.m. to 8 p.m., or until finished, at Pyne Keohane Funeral Home, 21 Emerald St., Hingham. A Mass will be held on Saturday, February 17 at 10 a.m. at St. Ann’s Church, 208 Samoset Ave. Life celebration party to follow. Visit www.keohane.com for online condolences. 

In lieu of flowers, you can make a donation on Lorraine Earle’s behalf to the DJ Henry Dream Fund, https://djdreamfund.charityproud.org/Donate or the Sunset Point Camp, https://www.ccab.org/ways-to-give/donate.