Austin O’Toole

Austin O’Toole took flight to the Great Beyond early in the morning on June 15, 2026, just as the birds began their morning chorus. The spirit of his dear and beloved wife, Fleurette, was ever present in his life and in his final hours. He was surrounded by his loving children during his last hours upon this glorious globe where he sometimes traipsed, staggered, and strode — but mostly wandered — for more than 96 years.

The Grand Poobah of the High and Sacred Order of Lucky Ducks is survived by a flock of lucky ducklings, including his five children – Colleen Joubert and her husband, Daniel Joubert of Pascoag, R.I.; Lawrence O’Toole and his wife, Janice Holden O’Toole of Scituate, R.I.; Erin Asai and her husband, Shoh Masafumi Asai of Glen Gardner, N.J.; Derek Calibre of Honolulu, Hawaii; and Kelly Greenlee and her husband, Steve Greenlee, of Cumberland, Maine. He was “Pap” to his flock of eight grandchildren: Laura, Seth, Daniel, June, Meg, Aidan, Liam, and Amelia, and (so far) four great-grandchildren.

Austin, known to his childhood pals and family as “Buzz,” was born the third of four children in Worcester, Massachusetts. For Austin, school was a place to participate in sports, particularly football, in which he especially delighted and excelled, being chosen in his junior year of high school for the All-City football team.

At the end of his junior year, he transferred to a private school in Blackwood, New Jersey, where he pursued an interest in a religious vocation. The zeal for the religious life led him to enter the monastic way with the Trappist Monks in Valley Falls, R.I. The life of work, prayer, silence and fasting proved too rigorous for him and brought him close to nervous collapse. He was advised by the monks’ doctor to leave the monastic life. He followed that advice with a deep sense of loss.

Within six months, Austin was involved in a very different communal life, that of an infantry rookie of the U.S. Army. The Korean War was going on, and his post-training assignment was to a road construction battalion in Korea. He served in Korea for 13 months and was discharged honorably in 1954.

Five years older than the typical college student, Austin matriculated at Holy Cross College into the bachelor of arts honors program to study English, philosophy, Latin, Greek, German, and other courses in the humanities.

He married Fleurette Arpin at the end of his freshman year and graduated in 1958 in the top 10 percent of his class. In these years, two of his five children were born, and the world as it was became a bit brighter.

After graduation, Austin and his family moved to Providence, where he apprenticed at his in-laws’ funeral business, a vocation he quickly learned wasn’t for him. He spent a year teaching English and chemistry at LaSalle Academy, then worked as a Latin teacher at Cumberland High School. This was to be his career for the next 13 years, variously working as a football coach, class adviser, drama coach and language department head.

Alcoholism, gradually at first and precipitously at last, forced Austin to find help to recuperate a disintegrating life. In the confusion of early recovery, he resigned from his teaching job because he misdirected the pain and depression caused by alcoholism upon his job, which, with the rest of his life, lost luster for him.

Early recovery from alcoholism was weighted with financial stresses for him and his family. His home would surely have been lost to the wolves of debt had it not been that his courageous wife, Fleurette, kept to the task. With her part-time job and the help of Aid to Families of Dependent Children (welfare), she was able to hold home, husband and family together. Here was the inglorious work of a heroine! Thanks to that and financial and moral support from the Department of Vocational Rehabilitation (DVR), Austin refurbished mind and spirit enough to prepare for a new career.

The process of recovery from alcoholism became not only important but intriguing. With help from the DVR, Austin was accepted into a counseling internship at the Andrew Johnson Detoxification Center in East Boston. After 18 months of sobriety and taking whatever courses were available, Austin was taken on as a counselor at Talbot House. Interest in the field of alcoholism grew along with the ongoing process of recovery. He eagerly attended courses, seminars and workshops, which, along with extensive reading, formed a foundation for his work.

In 1976, Austin became an alcoholism counselor in the Family Counseling Unit of Rhode Island Family Court. Besides a full counseling schedule at Family Court, Austin assisted the chief judge of the Family Court in the research for a court policy statement recognizing alcoholism as a treatable illness.

In 1982, Austin was awarded a master’s of arts degree from Rhode Island College.

In his late 50s, Austin retired from the family court system and started his own counseling practice, working from home in a hut that he built himself from stones he hauled from the woods behind his home. Picture a man of fine form with a long pole upon his shoulder. At pole’s end is a swinging canvas sling, heavy with stones, some far bigger than the proverbial bread box. Physically, he was no Atlas … and yet … a colossus of a man was he!

Through his practice, he touched the lives of countless people, many of whom say that he saved their lives. He counseled well into his late 80s until his beloved Fleurette died.

After her death, Austin retired from his counseling practice, though he stayed connected with many of his clients, who would call and visit often over the remaining seven years of his life, with gifts and conversations aplenty.

His family life remained rich to the end, with many a raucous family gathering, Dad (Pap) presiding from his corner perch — master of ceremonies and fair arbiter of deep discussion by evening candlelight or morning sunlight.

Personal interests came and went and came again, as in any curious life. In his early years, they included handyman-ing, motorcycling, theater, duck hunting, trout fishing, meditation, walking, painting, Jungian psychology, and beekeeping. He was also something of a woodland poacher in those days. Today, his home haven is adorned with trees he took from various woods and wild places. To change a line by Tennessee Williams: “He’s a poacher, natural-born.”

As years progressed, bird hunting gave way to birdwatching, a pastime that entertained and occupied him throughout his later years, affording him the excuse to travel and explore, in the quest for a comprehensive and impressive Life List. He was a frequent contributor to the editorial page of the Providence Journal, where his letters to the editor played gadfly to issues of local interest. Most people today know him to have been a reader; lover of classical music, opera and ballet; bread baker; gourmet cook; and observer of nature.

He was ever grateful and humbled to be the recipient of comfort and good health afforded to him by the government system that bumped along with him through all the turning points of his life, from his time in the military to his stint as a school teacher to his term as a state employee, and everything in between and beyond.

Over the course of his prodigious life, he profoundly affected the lives of hundreds of people, with ripple effects beyond anyone’s imaginings. Who in Austin’s vast orbit has not received and benefited from his wisdom, his generosity of spirit, his profound respect for the human condition, and his humor? Mighty few, indeed. For those who knew him, lucky ducks are we!

Relatives and friends are invited to a Celebration of Life, to take place at the Scituate Community House, 546 W. Greenville Rd, Scituate, RI, on Thursday, July 23 from 4 to 7 p.m.

Funeral and burial services will be private.

In lieu of flowers, contributions in Austin’s memory may be made to Community Care Alliance, Attn: Communication/Development Department, PO Box 1700, Woonsocket, RI 02895.