LEWISTON – Amid pipe organ strains of “Amazing Grace,” Roland Dumais’ copper-colored casket stood at the rear of the Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul on Saturday morning as the spring sun filtered through stained glass to bathe it in light.

Near the coffin, Dumais’ widow, Mildred, sat in her wheelchair, flanked by a ring of firefighters in blue dress uniforms. More than 30 other relatives also looked on while the Rev. Robert Lariviere delivered a blessing.

Then six firefighters guided the casket through the pews of the church, heading for the altar where Dumais, a Lewiston firefighter for 25 years, 13 of them as fire chief, would answer his last call.

Dumais died last week at the age of 91.

Seventy-five family members and former co-workers gathered Saturday to remember Dumais with a respectful celebration of a life spent in the path of danger. During the hourlong service, Lariviere implored mourners not to weep but instead to rejoice in the memory of Dumais’ strength, kindness and faith.

“With modern technology we may be able to put it off awhile, but eventually death is going to come to us all,” he said. “But death isn’t the end, and it isn’t the last word; it’s merely a passage from this life to something more, something mysterious.”

Although Dumais had no children of his own, he was close with those of his siblings, said great-niece Tracy Flavin. The two regularly traded letters, from when she was in college until shortly before Dumais’ death. She spoke of one letter in which she worried about her grades. He wrote back, saying not to worry about grades as much as understanding the subject matter of her engineering coursework.

“It’s not a game of getting good grades in college,” Dumais replied. “This is the real world, and there will be other problems to worry about.”

Flavin recalled a paper her 11-year-old son, Patrick, wrote for school. The topic of the paper was heroes. Patrick chose to write about Dumais because of his military service during World War II, when he survived German bombardment at Bastogne, Belgium, and because “he is very kind.”

Following the service, Dumais was laid to rest in St. Peter’s Catholic Cemetery. Lewiston Fire Ladder Truck One, chrome and bright-yellow paint gleaming in the sunshine, led the funeral procession away from the Basilica with lights blazing and siren wailing. While the procession continued on to the cemetery, however, the truck stopped at the fire station.

Duty first, after all.

But Rita Nichols, who runs errands for Mildred Dumais and helped the couple keep house, said the former chief would have understood.

“He was a very nice man, a wonderful man,” Nichols said. “They’re both wonderful. Mildred always makes me feel like part of the family.”