Wednesday, Jan. 21, 2004 | 10:44 a.m.
When Jamie Levine brought her new boyfriend to her grandmother's Henderson home a year ago, Marianne Schwartz was instantly convinced he would be the man with whom her granddaughter would spend the rest of her life.
"He walks in with a gigantic smile and big blue eyes and says 'OK, show me the family pictures,' " Schwartz said of Canadian pilot Wayne Price, who had planned to marry Levine, a psychologist at a Los Angeles battered-women's home.
"He cried at her graduation ceremony when she received her master's degree from Pepperdine University last May. They talked of my future great-grandchildren and of the life they would enjoy together. Now I know they will be together forever."
Price, 32, was the pilot of a small Canadian-based shuttle plane that on Saturday was carrying Levine, 28, and a party of eight hunters when it crashed into the icy waters of Lake Erie, killing all aboard.
Rescue efforts Tuesday were hampered by bad winter weather and frigid waters. Canadian officials called Schwartz on Tuesday and told her that the equipment they had brought to the scene to access the plane could not reach the craft that lay in 24 feet of water.
Schwartz, whose husband, Danny, died four months ago, said she has had restless nights since Saturday pondering why such a tragedy could befall such a young and promising couple.
"Jamie was such a jewel, and they loved each other so much," Schwartz said of the romance that stretched a continent and bridged two nations -- he a resident of Richmond Hill, Ontario; she is a Los Angeles native.
"They were in the process of deciding where they were going to live before they formally announced engagement plans."
Schwartz, a Henderson resident for 14 years, said her first impression of Price was a lasting one.
"He called me 'Grandma Cobbler' because I made him a cherry cobbler when Jamie brought him to meet us," Schwartz said, noting Price gave the Schwartzes a bottle of Canadian maple syrup that sits unopened on her kitchen shelf.
"At the time, Jamie told us she had not yet introduced Wayne to her parents, but wanted us to meet him first."
Schwartz said that in the last year the couple and some of their friends visited her and Danny several times and that fellow pilots talked of Wayne's resourcefulness and great skills at the controls of a plane.
Schwartz said she last talked to Levine last week.
"Jamie was so excited because she not only was going to get Martin Luther King Jr. Day off, but also Tuesday so she and Wayne could spend time together on his flights," Schwartz said, noting Price was to make three flights Saturday.
Price's single-engine Cessna 208 Caravan crashed in snowy weather about a mile west of Canada's Pelee Island, the Ontario Provincial Police said. The Georgian Express plane had just taken off from Pelee Island bound for Windsor, about 35 miles to the northwest, when the pilot made a frantic call for help.
Hope of a rescue soon vanished.
"Unfortunately, this has changed from a rescue mission to a recovery mission," provincial police Constable Brian Knowler said Sunday.
The cause of the crash has not been determined.
Ontario Provincial Police said divers arrived at the crash site Monday morning aboard the Canadian Coast Guard icebreaker Samuel Risley for what they expected to be a difficult recovery.
Shifting ice on the lake complicated their work, police said. The water temperature was about 34 degrees.
Price and Levine met last year after Levine rented a room in a large Southern California home, where a pilot friend of Price also was a resident. The friend introduced them to each other after Price piloted a commercial flight into Los Angeles.
Despite living hundreds of miles apart the two managed to date often. Earlier this month they went whale watching off the California coast, Schwartz said.
Levine was raised in Los Angeles by her parents, Doris and Curtis Levine. She had one brother, David Levine. Early on Jamie Levine, a vegetarian and marathon runner, wanted to be a nutritionist.
But at Long Beach State University she chose psychology as her major and graduated with a bachelor's degree -- the first in her family to get a college education, Schwartz said.
For a while Levine taught at a private day care center before gaining employment at a home for battered women and children. There she helped people get their broken lives back together, Schwartz said.
When Levine's body is recovered it will be taken to Los Angeles for services and burial, Schwartz said.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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