Rebecca Ramage Cantrell

It’s hard to distill down a true force…Rebecca Ramage Cantrell, age 60, of Evans, GA, passed away Thursday, May 23, 2024 at her residence.

Rebecca was the second of four daughters to Dr. Thomas and Jane Terry Ramage.  The Ramage girls were close life-long friends, with countless weekend cookouts and family vacations spent together.  Rebecca was a graduate of Augusta University (formerly Medical College of Georgia).  She was recognized as a Distinguished Alumna in 2017. She received her Master’s degree at Georgia Tech in 1988.  She met her husband Joel in graduate school, where they were immediately attracted to one another.

She worked as a Medical Physicist at the Augusta University Medical Center and directed treatment planning for the Gamma Knife radiosurgery program.  Rebecca took meticulous technical and personal care of her patients; she purchased coffee for the center to offer, music to play during treatment, and she wrote hand-written cards to all patients post-treatment as follow-up. 

Outside of work, Rebecca loved cooking, golf, sewing, and reading, but her diverse interests weren’t contained—she vacationed to scuba dive, snow ski, hike, canoe, and fish.  Her favorite vacation remained the annual extended family beach trip.   Her home was always the ‘party house,’ and she loved to entertain family and friends.   Rebecca was a natural healer and cared deeply for everyone’s welfare.  If you were in her orbit, you surely were cared for, made to laugh, well-fed – probably all the above.  She was renowned for her epic generosity, and gave freely of her time, talent and treasure to charities, friends, and pure strangers.

She was preceded in death by her parents, and by a sister Beth Breshears.  She is survived by her husband Joel, daughter Amelia, and son Jacob (who were the center of her universe as mother).  She is also survived by her sister Alicia Markyna (Carlos), sister Amy Wheeler (Donald), sister-in-law Kimberly Brock (Derek), brother-in-law Scott Breshears, sister-cousin Gayle Clyburn (Lewis), and many nieces and nephews.