FARMINGTON – Ardy Rausch had loved animals while she was alive. And even in death, Rausch’s love for them will live on.

Rausch, a former Sun Journal correspondent, left a $50,000 bequest to the Franklin County Animal Shelter in her will.

Rausch, an accomplished musician, lived in Freeman Township for about 30 years before she died of a heart attack in October 2003.

Rausch and her husband, Richard, who died in 1999, moved to Maine from New Jersey, said Anne Richard-Schattschneider, a close friend and official of Rausch’s estate.

They had traveled extensively looking for a place to build a house, she said. “They liked Maine,” she said.

Ardy Rausch was a music teacher in New Jersey. She played a variety of instruments including piano, violin and guitar, and played in an orchestra in Farmington, Richard-Schattschneider said.

Besides teaching music, writing stories for local newspapers and being treasurer of the Strong Historical Society, Rausch sold real estate for a number of years.

She also loved her fast cars and her motorcycle, smoked pipes and wore leather.

She and her husband owned and operated a saw mill, Strong Lumber, and they made one of their machines capable of cutting the longest length of lumber in the county.

For a number of years, Ardy Rausch had many stray cats around her home and she used to feed them, Richard-Schattschneider said. She also had three German shepherds.

“She had a love of cats and dogs and she was fond of my horse and would take care of our animals when we went away,” she said.

Rausch was fun-loving and happy, she said. She liked nothing better to get your goat, she added.

“She was just a wonderful friend,” Richard-Schattschneider said. “There was nothing she wouldn’t do for me or any of her close friends.”

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