THOMASTON — A dedicated husband, father, outdoorsman, and tinkerer, Raymond "Ray" John Doubleday, age 70 of Thomaston, Maine, passed away on Friday, September 1st, 2017 surrounded by loved ones in Boston, Massachusetts. Always curious, Ray's self-proclaimed "lifetime learner" status and love for sharing his latest discoveries with friends and family enriched the lives of everyone who was fortunate to cross his path. He approached everything he took interest in from fly tying to bread making with equal zeal. He told wonderful stories and terrible jokes; Ray was razor-sharp but also disarming, a logically minded pragmatist with a soft heart.

Ray was born and grew up on his parent's farm in Connecticut where his love of all things outdoors was fostered. It was a lifelong joy he impressed upon his family through the countless trips he shared with them through the backcountry of New England (as a registered Maine Guide, no less) and Canada.

In the 1960's, Ray left his Connecticut home for the big city of Boston to attend Northeastern University where he studied engineering. It was there that he met and married his college sweetheart Jamie during their junior year. A romantic at heart, Ray would ride his bike dozens of miles to Massachusetts to visit her, and worked two jobs to save for an engagement ring.

He worked in the instrumentation labs at MIT, contributing to NASA's Apollo program spacecraft gyroscope systems, but was also a long-haired, bearded, student-activist during the tumultuous Vietnam War era. The irony not lost on him after his days of protesting, Ray chose to cut his long hair and start his career working for the United States Navy. This gave him the opportunity to travel the world to work on highly classified cutting edge Naval sonar systems. During this time he received his master's degree in Computer Science through the University of Connecticut.

Ray continued his work for the Navy at the Naval Underwater Systems Center in New London, Connecticut, until he and Jamie started a family and decided to move to Maine in 1991. Here they followed their dream of starting their own woodworking business; Mystic Woodworks is a staple of the community to this day.

Ray was an incredibly devoted father who encouraged all of his children's pursuits. He wore many hats as he participated in his children's creative and academic growth. Ray was a leader in both his son and daughters' Scout troops, a baseball coach, an advanced math class middle school tutor, a home computer science instructor, an adjunct professor at the University of Maine and everything else in between.

He had a love for and an eclectic taste in music, Ray played the accordion and taught himself the banjo. Two of Ray's great passions included competitive cycling and traveling. He was proud of the fact that he rode an old steel frame Trek road bike and regularly competed in time trials, determined to climb to the top of his age group but was never bothered when he came in dead last. Ray also had a map of the world littered with colored pins of places visited and places yet to explore.

Ray had a horrible disease that he met head-on with dignity, strength and determination. Despite the unrelenting leukemia, he never complained. With calculating charts and graphs, he approached his illness in classic Ray Doubleday style: as a complex problem that needed to be solved. Ray was a warrior, a cheerleader and a hero to many at the Gibson Pavilion at Maine Medical Center and at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. He left an indelible mark on this world and will be sorely missed. He leaves Jamie, his wife of 48 years; three children, Joshua Doubleday of Chicago, Illinois; Amanda Doubleday of Rockland, Hannah Thompson and her husband Mike of Thomaston; two grandchildren Robert Blair and Naomi Thompson; sisters-in-law Cindy Lodise and her husband Mike of Danville, NH; Lee-Anne Leverone and her husband Richard of York, ME; brother-in-law Dana Carmichael and his life partner, Stephane Farmer, of Frisco, Texas.

A celebration of Ray's life for family and friends will be held on Saturday, September 16th 1:00 p.m. at the Sail Power and Steam Museum, 75 Mechanic Street, Rockland, Maine.

In lieu of flowers, should friends desire, memorial donations may be sent to the Raymond J. Doubleday Memorial Scholarship for engineering and computer science students at The First Bank P.O. Box 606 Rockland, ME 04841.

Hall's of Thomaston has care of the arrangements. To extend online condolences for Ray please visit his Book of Memories at www.hallfuneralhomes.com.