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Shirley Adams' last conversation with her daughter was a short one. Danielle Saint Paulin asked Adams to watch her children while she joined her friends on a spur-of-the-moment road trip to Fort Kent. "I wished her a happy Mother's Day, and that was it," Adams recalled Monday. "I never thought I would have to bury my daughter." By Sunday evening, Adams learned that Saint Paulin, 29, and her two close friends Kelley Armstrong, 28, and Hope Gagnon, 29, were dead. So were Armstrong's son and Gagnon's three children, all of them between the ages of 4 and 8 years old. The news stunned relatives and friends of the three women and four children who died in a Mother's Day crash on Interstate 95 near Bangor. It also caused officials to interrupt classes Monday at South Portland's Dora L. Small Elementary School, which two of Gagnon's children attended. Friends of the dead women gravitated to Adams' Salem Street home in Portland on Monday to comfort her and Saint Paulin's four children. Saint Paulin and Gagnon met as teenagers in South Portland and were always visiting or talking on the phone, Adams said. Armstrong, who grew up in Cumberland, met them later when she moved to South Portland, and the three became best friends. "They liked to chill" said Courtney VanDeventer, 13, one of Saint Paulin's daughters. "They weren't big partyers, but they liked to go out and hang out with friends." Friends say Gagnon organized Sunday's trip. She had met a man over the Internet who lived in Fort Kent, and he invited her to come for a visit with her children, they said. She asked Armstrong and Saint Paulin to go along. "They were just going up for the day," friend Michelle Sanga said. "They all decided to go up together." Police did not confirm those details Monday. They said they did not know the reason for the trip or if Fort Kent was the destination. An investigation into the crash is ongoing. According to Maine State Police, the three women rented a Ford Explorer just after noon Sunday, and filled it with Gagnon's children, Deion Stuart, 8, T'keyah "Tamisha" Stuart, 6, and Ariana Stuart, 4, and Armstrong's 4-year-old son, Kristian. Investigators later found McDonald's wrappers and Happy Meal boxes around the destroyed vehicle. Armstrong originally planned to leave her son with a sitter, but decided to bring him so they could spend the day together, VanDeventer said. "I wanted to go too, but they wouldn't let me," she said. VanDeventer stayed behind with her three siblings: Michael Coombs, 11, Anthony VanDeventer, 7, and Jaelee Saint Paulin, who had her first birthday in January. Danielle Saint Paulin's husband, Mackenzie, did not go on the trip and was not at Adams' house Monday. "He needs some quiet time," Adams said. "It's hit him rough." Kelley Armstrong was a graduate of Yarmouth High School and grew up in the Cumberland Center area, said longtime friend Janice Selig. Selig described her as a wonderful mother whose son, Kristian, was the most important thing in her life. He was looking forward to kindergarten, and got a $5 bill under his pillow after losing his first tooth just last week, she said. "She always treated her son just like a little person," Selig said. "She made him be a great kid." Friends and relatives remembered Hope Gagnon as a popular, outgoing person who coached cheerleading one year at South Portland High School. "She just loved everybody," said Kim Coon, who grew up with Gagnon and graduated with her in 1993. "She was in every clique." Gagnon studied to be a transcriptionist at Husson College, but she took jobs that allowed her to work out of her home so she could be with her children, her family said. Most recently, she performed data entry and answered e-mails for Patriot Video, said her 16-year-old sister, Mandy Stuart. She would take T'keyah to cheerleading practice with the Elite All-Stars, and had planned to coach Deion's soccer team last year - even though she didn't know how to play - until a more experienced parent volunteered. "She was going to learn how to play," said family friend Dawn Donald. Gagnon also looked after her two younger sisters. "When my mother passed away (in 2002), she's who I went to," said Anna Stuart, 22. "She was a good listener and helped me out." Family members said they didn't know that Gagnon was planning a trip north. They said she didn't drive - instead getting around town mostly by cab or bus - and didn't travel far. When the weather was pleasant, they said, she would take her children to nearby Willard Beach. At the elementary school attended by Gagnon's two oldest children, Deion and T'keyah, counselors from the Center for Grieving Children helped staff and students deal with the news. Counselors visited each classroom, and met individually with students who sought their services, Principal Bonnie Hicks said. Staff contacted families whose children were close friends with either of the siblings. It was the first year at the K-5 school for Deion, an athletic second-grader, and T'keyah, a bubbly first-grader. Family said they lived in Gorham, before Gagnon and Aaron Gagnon divorced. Despite being new to the school, the two children had many friends across grade levels, Hicks said. Parent Jane Batzell said her 7-year-old son and his classmates grieved for Deion on Monday by expressing themselves with clay. Batzell's son made a heart. Other students cut out the letters "D-E-I-O-N" and put it on his locker. "Most of the children cried. And he cried," Batzell said. "The kids are very thoughtful, and care very deeply about what happened," Hicks said. "They're working through it."
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