Diane Slade Brunelle

Diane Slade Brunelle of Wells, ME, passed away after a short illness on Saturday, September 23, 2023. She was 70 years old. The daughter of Emile and Claire (Juaire) Gosselin, Diane grew up in Attleboro, MA with her four younger siblings. She attended St. Joseph’s grade school and Bishop Feehan High School with the Sisters of Mercy (or “Merciless”, as she impishly referred to them), graduating with Honors in 1970. Over the next three decades she would dedicate her life to motherhood, raising three children with her husband George Slade Jr. in Bourne, MA, attending countless hockey practices on frigid winter mornings, braiding immeasurable lengths of hair, constructing dozens of birthday dinner lasagnas, and delivering at least one litter of unexpected puppies. She also put skills picked up from the family’s upholstery trade to a range of uses, sewing a closet full of school jumpers, holiday dresses, First Communion gowns, and costumes for Halloween, school plays and figure skating performances. After her children were grown, Diane turned to realizing a lifelong ambition, working in the architectural field. After assisting her uncle at Bilodeau Architecture in Sagamore, MA she earned a degree in Mechanical Drafting & Design from York County Community College, subsequently becoming a senior member of the drafting team at Hussey Seating (where she proudly assisted on the plans for Gillette Stadium) for the remainder of her professional life. At work she was always a pillar of dependability and proficiency and will be remembered by her fellow colleagues at Alamacs, Angelos, Atlantic Design, Cross Jewelers and Hussey for her calming presence, humor and warm conversation. Diane was driven by her many and diverse interests, which she pursued with an uncanny eye for detail and dedication to excellence. Horseback riding, pruning her roses, making meat pies, volunteering for the Sandwich Historical Society, trimming the Christmas tree, picking blueberries, skiing Sunday River’s White Heat, packing lunches for beach trips, boat days and picnics on the Cape Cod Canal: all were undertaken with the same conviction that something done well produced maximum enjoyment. Her family has benefitted incalculably from this legacy. Over the last decades of her life she and her husband Steve embarked on a new passion: raising and training Golden Retrievers with a special community based throughout the country they enjoyed corresponding with and traveling with to events. Her home was transformed into a shrine of reddish-blond fur, and countless blue, red and yellow ribbons from hundreds of hunt competitions she and her beloved “second family” entered. Pictures of Orion, Max, Houston, Maggie, Stellar, and Joy intermingled with photos of her children and grandchildren on her prized piano. In 2007, Diane became “Gamma,” and amassed many ground and air miles traveling everywhere from campgrounds across New England to maternity wards in San Francisco to visit her nine grandchildren. Diane was preceded in death by her father, Emile, in 1961. She is survived by her husband Steven Brunelle; her mother Claire; her siblings Denise Dogan, Annie-Marie Wilkins (Roger), Gerard (Jay) Gosselin (Vicki), and Stephen Gosselin (Michele); her son Jonathan Szpila and wife Jessica of Tiverton, RI, her daughter Becky MacDonald and husband Christopher of Duxbury, MA, daughter Sarah Slade and partner Eric Doray of Charlton, MA; her grandchildren: George MacDonald, Katazina Szpila, Abigail MacDonald, Emma Claire MacDonald, James MacDonald, Andi Claire Doray, Blake Doray, Tanager Szpila and Harrier Szpila; as well as several nieces and nephews, cousins, aunts and uncles. The family would like to thank the caring staff at York Hospital in Maine for their loving kindness during the last two weeks of her life. A Mass of Christian Burial will be celebrated on Tuesday, October 3, 2023 at 11 a.m. at St. Theresa of the Child Jesus Parish, 18 Baltic Street, South Attleboro, MA. Visitation will take place in the Parish Center on Tuesday from 10 a.m. until the time of the Mass. Interment will follow at St. Stephen’s Cemetery in Attleboro, MA. Arrangements are under the direction of the Conroy-Tully Walker Funeral Home of Portland, ME. To view Diane's memorial page, or to share on online condolence, please visit www.ConroyTullyWalker.com. In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations be made in Diane’s memory to the Golden Retriever Foundation - Zeke Cancer Research Fund P.O. Box 952732, St. Louis, MO 63195-2732 or Boston Children’s Hospital Trust - Child Life Services Pawprints Animal Assisted Activity Program 401 Park Drive, Suite 602, Boston, MA 02215.