FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. – Patricia Greaney Oransky passed away on April 21, 2021 at the age of 91. Born in Portland and raised on Munjoy Hill, Patricia graduated from Portland High School in 1947 and was awarded the Brown Medal, given to just five girls and five boys in her Senior class.

In 1946 she met Richard Oransky at a summer dance on the Eastern Prom, and thus began a unique romance that lasted 66 years until Richard’s death in 2012. Patricia was Catholic and Richard was Jewish, a relatively common relationship in today’s world but very controversial in 1940’s Maine. They received little support from their families, but persisted and married in 1949 at City Hall with just two witnesses at their side.

After her youngest child reached school age, Patricia began a varied and interesting work career. In the early 1960’s she began selling real estate, using radio commercials as a novel way to promote her listings. She later spent time at Canal (Key) Bank and Maine Bank & Trust (People’s United), and finally as a motor coach tour planner and coordinator.

Travel was one of Patricia’s great passions, she and her husband visited dozens of countries and made more than 40 Atlantic crossings by cruise ship. They were especially adventurous in the 1970’s, when they made trips to Russia, Machu Picchu and took a river barge up the Nile. In 1974, on a plane change in East Berlin from Moscow, she was detained briefly because a luggage search uncovered a then-banned copy of Soviet dissident Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s book The Gulag Archipelago. It was determined to be an innocent oversight, and a relieved Patricia flew safely home.

In the early 1990’s she and Richard moved to Fort Lauderdale, Fla. While she loved the beautiful year-round weather, Patricia returned often to Maine to visit family and enjoy her favorite lobster club sandwich at DiMillo’s Restaurant. And she always noted that, despite her world travels and longtime residence in Florida, every dream she had while sleeping always took place in Portland.

In July, 2016, to celebrate the 60th anniversary of Patricia and Richard’s meeting on the Eastern Prom, her children bought a bench that overlooks the tennis courts, which was the site of those long-ago summer dances. On the seat back a plaque reads “Once Upon A Time”.

Patricia leaves three children, Michael and wife Jill of Fort Lauderdale, Steven and wife Carmelina of Gloucester, Mass., and Lisa Norton and husband Jim of Scarborough; six grandchildren; and five great-grandchildren.

A private, summer service will be held at the Spurwink Church Cemetery in Cape Elizabeth.

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