Alice Faye Hines Ruckert died on Jan. 1, 2025, at Cape Cod Hospital. The cause, confirmed by her daughter Leslie Polk, was seizures induced by high blood pressure. She was 82.
The daughter of the late Dannie and Thelma (Blocker) Hines, Alice Faye was born on July 26, 1942 in Ozark, Ala. When her mother died and her father remarried into a large family, her eldest brother, Roy, and his wife, Betty, became Alice Faye’s surrogate parents.
Her first job in rural Alabama was at a record store, where she listened for hours to Elvis Presley, her first love. She found life in the Baptist community there to be constricting.
After high school, she moved to Washington, D.C., where she worked as a secretary for the C.I.A. and met David Ruckert, who was in the Army. She was 20 when they married.
The couple settled in Weston, Conn., where they raised their two daughters. Alice Faye earned a B.A. in English from Fairfield University. In 1981, she and David divorced.
The family had vacationed in Provincetown, renting homes in the East End. After her divorce she moved to Provincetown “to explore life,” Leslie said. “She loved that you could be who you are there.”
With her best friend, Jean Cantin and her husband, Don, Alice Faye bought a duplex in the West End, where she lived for the next 20 years. Bob Gebelein became her life partner, and she worked as an assistant for many years for writer Peter Manso of Truro.
After her friend Jean died in 2001, Alice Faye moved to Yarmouth Port, where her sister had recently retired. She became a transcriber for the district court.
Alice Faye loved a good crime story and was an avid reader of mysteries; her love of novelists Dickens, Austen, and Trollope never wavered.
Alice Faye was also an expert at puzzles and trivia; she trounced all comers in Scrabble. She solved the New York Times crossword puzzles until her last days. She loved gardening, birds, and the many cats she cared for throughout her life.
Evenings filled with music, great food, and laughter warmed Alice Faye’s heart. To the end of her life she cherished “cocktails on the deck” with sparkling conversation.
She is survived by her former spouse, David Ruckert of Coronado, Calif.; daughters Jeanne Ruckert Lovy of Yarmouth Port and Leslie Polk and husband Kevin of Boston and Yarmouth Port; Sequoia, Heather, and Bethany Cantin of Hawaii and Truro; nieces Debbie, Diana, and Mimi of Bellflower, Calif.; and grandchildren Benjamin, Jonah, and Rosalie Lovy, and their partners Marisa, Kellie, and Jeff. She is also survived by her longtime partner Robert Gebelein of Durham, N.C. and Provincetown.
Alice Faye was predeceased by her siblings Gencie, Joanne, and Roy, and by her friend Jean Cantin.
The family has established a fund to honor Alice Faye and support causes she cared about, including human rights, opportunities for women and girls, and animal rescue, at the Cape Cod Foundation.
