Jerome S. “Jerry” Rice, recently of Taos, NM passed away suddenly on Oct. 22, 2025, after a fall. Jerry was born on Nov. 3, 1937, in Roseau, Minn, graduated from Roseau High School in 1955 and maintained close connections to Roseau County all his life. He graduated from St. Olaf College in 1959 and Harvard Law School in 1962. He served in the US Army at the Electronic Materiel Agency from 1963 through 1964, and also worked for Harold Stassen’s firm while stationed in Philadelphia.
After his honorable discharge as a 1st Lieutenant, he joined the Levitt Palmer & Bowen firm in Minneapolis, followed by the Fredrikson, Byron & Colburn firm. He started his own boutique litigation firm in 1981. Jerry was admitted to the Minnesota State and Federal bars in 1962 and litigated in various cases in Federal and State Courts in the District of Columbia, California, Illinois, Iowa, Texas, Georgia, Maine, Minnesota, Florida, Wisconsin, and Montana. He served multiple terms on the Hennepin County Bar Association Ethics and Bench & Bar Committees. Jerry and his wife, Pat, lived in Prescott, Wis. before moving to Taos.
Jerry cared deeply about his clients, and his family remembers him awake late at night, practicing his closing arguments. He was most proud of the cases in which he fought for the underdog, including tribal treaty, insurance claim denial and police brutality cases.
Jerry loved to sing and was a chorister in the Plymouth Music Series choir and in several operas with the Minnesota Opera Company. An avid outdoorsman, he also loved to hunt and fish, adored hockey, and at 87 was still playing handball. Jerry loved talking to new people and had a deep and genuine curiosity about everyone he met. He was the author of five books, and a great dancer, but love of family was his top priority. He met the love of his life, Pat in 1980 and they deeply loved his three girls from his first marriage, Lyssa, Beth and Sunny and their own dear daughter, Lauren. Jerry and Pat enjoyed world travel, Pat’s gourmet cooking, dear friends and extended family. Through songs and stories celebrating the essential human dignity of every person, he instilled his strong sense of justice and love of music in his daughters and granddaughter.
He is preceded in death by parents Rudolph and Gladys (Edwardson) Rice and granddaughter Maeve Dempsey-Rice. He is survived by his wife Patricia (Cummings) Rice, daughters Melyssa (Tim Dempsey) Rice, Bethany Rice, Allison (Joe Stratman) Rice, Lauren Rice, and granddaughter Elspeth Dempsey-Rice, sisters Louise (Ed) Mackay and Janis (Dob) Hardy, and brother-in law Ed (Ryan Blalock) Cummings. He is also remembered by a large extended family which he treasured, and many friends from all over the country and world.
Memorials can be sent to the Roseau Historical Society, 121 Center St. E., Suite 101, Roseau, MN 56751.
Services are planned for 1 p.m. Nov. 22, 2025 at Plymouth Congregational Church in Minneapolis.
