Wayne Howard Albion knew how to build a life.
He built houses, cabinets, shelves, floors, decks, and even musical instruments. He turned ordinary rooms into beautiful ones and plain houses into warm spaces where people wanted to gather. He made music with his friends, adventures with his daughters, and a beautiful life with his wife Bonnie.
He leaves behind a loving family and many friends, several beautifully renovated homes over the years, an unknown but surely considerable quantity of paint supplies, and a garage more fastidiously maintained than your average hardware store.
Wayne was born in Boston on August 2, 1943, and grew up in Quincy and Weymouth, Massachusetts. After high school, he enlisted in the United States Navy and served with the Seabees, the Navy’s Construction Battalion.
His service took him to Morocco, a place he loved deeply. He admired the people he met there and returned home with stories he would tell for the rest of his life, some of which may even have improved with age.
Wayne was athletic, adventurous, and notably willing to try things that carried at least a moderate risk of bodily injury. He skied, serving on the Ski Patrol at Mount Snow in VT, camped, canoed, played tennis, hiked, played great frisbee, and golfed. In later years, he even found a love of corn hole. He was also famously accident-prone, turning some adventures into family legends, such as the time he almost took off his arm with a chainsaw while working on the animal pen or when he and his horse fell into a hole in the Moroccan desert.
Wayne began his career working for his father as a house painter, eventually starting his own residential painting company. His motto was “If you don’t like my work, tell me. If you do, tell your friends.” He took classes at Wentworth, earned his contracting license and later his builder’s license, and became a skilled carpenter, cabinetmaker, contractor, painter, and roofer. For many years, he ran a crew that was continuously booked for large painting jobs throughout eastern Massachusetts. Often, though, you’d find him happily whistling while working on a solo job. His second wife, Bonnie, was right alongside him splattered in paint as well. They made a superb team, each with their specialty skills and always regarding each other as equals. Bonnie remembers one long-time customer shouting, “Is that Bonnie up there?!”, alarmed that Wayne and Bonnie were working together on the steep rooftop. Wayne possessed an extraordinary work ethic and the conviction that a job should be done well. He did not cut corners. He did not tolerate shoddy workmanship. And he believed that every painting problem could be improved through the use of his proprietary “W method” of rolling paint. The method’s exact scientific basis remains unclear, but it didn’t stop many of his colleagues from adopting it.
Retirement for Wayne was largely a technicality. During his final decade at The Villages in Florida, Wayne was the neighborhood handyman and master carpenter, building custom cabinets and shelves, installing flooring, painting interiors, caring for lawns, and generally making himself indispensable. Neighbors would visit Wayne and Bonnie’s home, point to something he had built, and say, “I want that!”
Even in Florida, Wayne maintained a neatly arranged garage, filled with every tool, scrap of lumber, and mysterious metal object that might someday prove useful to the people he loved. In his final days, he walked his daughter through the entire inventory, explaining what each item was and why it must be saved. Much of this instruction went over her head. At one point, he held up an unfamiliar implement and said, “You’ll need this if you ever decide to install a floor yourself.” Kara just nodded and smiled, knowing she would almost certainly never install a floor, but understanding that this was Wayne’s way of making sure he could keep taking care of her, even after he was gone.
Wayne married his first wife, Laura Oehme, in 1969 and together they had two daughters, Kara and Katie. Wayne and Laura later divorced, remaining friends and regarding one another with affection and respect until her untimely passing in 1992.
Wayne loved being a father. He took Kara and Katie camping, including canoe-camping on the Saco and Allagash Rivers, taught them how to use tools and fish, and made music with them. He was the dad who made ridiculous faces, never missed a chance to make fun of himself, and passed his particular brand of goofiness on to his daughters. His love of being a father extended to his love of being a grandfather as well.
Most of all, Wayne’s daughters knew that they could count on him. Whatever he was doing, however far away he might be, and whatever needed repairing, Wayne would drop everything and help. Many rooms and spaces at Kara and Katie’s current homes were improved or created by Wayne. All they had to do was say, “Dad, can you help me?” He could fix virtually anything, but his real gift was making the people he loved feel safe and loved.
Wayne loved community gatherings. At their Hanover, MA home, Wayne built a backyard volleyball court that became the center of serious Wednesday night games, complete with cookouts, a one-tap beer dispenser, and lights donated by the local tennis club so play could continue after dark. The adults competed fiercely – no children allowed on the court! But the kids got full reign of the volleyball court in winter when Wayne flooded it and turned it into a skating rink.
That love of bringing people together never faded. Whether it was card games, dinner parties, game nights, cookouts, or simply spending time with friends alongside Bonnie, Wayne was happiest surrounded by good company. He was fortunate to enjoy many treasured friendships throughout his life, and his family would especially like to thank the wonderful friends he and Bonnie found at The Villages for making his retirement years so full of laughter, companionship, and cherished memories.
Wayne married Bonnie Bevans in 1988, and they shared nearly 38 joyful years filled with companionship, projects, music, travel, date nights, and adventure. Wayne introduced Bonnie to camping and the outdoors, sometimes with a little more adventure than her parents bargained for. They wondered why Bonnie was arriving home after dates with fresh bruises, cuts, and scrapes, mildly alarmed about what a date with Wayne involved.
Together, Wayne and Bonnie lived in Foxboro, MA before moving into the family home in Hanover after Laura’s death. Wayne, naturally, renovated it beautifully. They later purchased a cottage on Ezekiel Pond in Plymouth and transformed it into a lovely two-story home designed for relaxation and festive family gatherings.
Following many of their friends from Ezekiel Pond, their next adventure took them to The Villages, Florida, where they settled into a beautiful home overlooking a turtle preserve. There, Wayne and Bonnie spent sunsets watching the turtles and following the bluebird families that made use of the bird house Wayne maintained for them.
Music ran through Wayne’s life. He played guitar and sang Bob Dylan songs with Kara and Katie when they were young. Because merely playing instruments was insufficient, he also made guitars, a mandolin, and an electric bass, that his grandson, Atticus, now proudly plays. Wayne often talked about how much he loved working in his shop, listening to music and working on his instruments.
Wayne played mouth harp, mandolin, and washboard in the bluegrass band The Mudslide Closet Band with Laura, who played fiddle. He sang occasionally, including the song “Fox on the Run”. For the song “Orange Blossom Special,” Wayne vocalized the train whistle, delighting audiences and possibly confusing anyone waiting at a nearby railroad crossing.
Wayne turned to jazz after marrying Bonnie. He played electric and upright bass with many people, including Bonnie’s brother, Bobby Bevans, at White Cliffs Country Club in Plymouth and other local venues. When he decided he wanted to play the upright bass, he jumped right in and took lessons from Marshall Wood, a world-renowned jazz bassist. “Harvey” became Wayne’s beloved stand-up bass.
Wayne’s lifelong love of music found a quiet outlet later in life as he dedicated himself to learning and playing the classical guitar.
Wayne was cheerful, loving, humble, funny, hardworking, and deeply devoted to his family. He loved adventuring outdoors, good parties, laughing, and making people laugh. He dabbled in homesteading, raising meat animals and tending a garden.
Wayne was a master at grilling and was also known for putting on a great clambake, collecting the seaweed himself and cooking it either in a hole in the ground or in a metal barrel system. He loved telling the story of the time he was in charge of the clambake at the Viking Club in Braintree, MA, when the kids were young. The lobsters came out undercooked because so many people pitched in and added too much seaweed.
He sure did love lobster. Growing up in Weymouth, MA, Friday night was lobster night because, hard as it is to believe now, lobster was inexpensive then. Wayne taught generations of family members and friends how to eat lobster properly, and Cape Cod potato chips were the required side dish. They will always be a staple at the many family lobster meals still to come, a simple tradition that will keep Wayne’s memory alive.
He is survived by his wife, Bonnie Bevans Albion; his daughters, Kara Peters and Katie Pierce; his sons-in-law, Christopher Peters and Sean Pierce; his grandchildren (in order by age), Nathaniel Pierce, Ella Pierce, Michael Pierce, Atticus Peters, Amelia Pierce, Penelope Peters, Joseph Pierce, and Eugenia Pierce; his sister, Carol Fountain, (who always said that somewhere along the way she went from being Wayne’s older sister to his younger one; a phenomenon of nature, she says); his sister-in-law of his first wife, Alice Oehme; and their many friends, past and present, in Masschusetts and Florida. He was predeceased by his brother, David Albion; his parents, Howard and Eugenia Albion; and his first wife, Laura Oehme.
The family asks that those wishing to honor Wayne laugh a lot, build something well, help a neighbor, play some music, tell a story that gets slightly better with each retelling, or gather the people they love around a good game of cribbage.