OLD TOWN – His smile could light up a room, and although Eddie Cross had some problems, he was a big-hearted teen, according to his friends.

Eddie, 17, died in a drowning accident Aug. 20 while drinking with friends in New Hampshire on the banks of the Merrimack River. His friends in Maine said they weren’t surprised, however, to learn that Eddie had been drinking.

As Jesse Moreau, 15, sat Thursday at the kitchen table of his Milford home with his mom and two other friends, he explained that they all knew Eddie drank.

After the boy’s mother died of cancer about two years ago, Eddie bounced around between friends and family in the Old Town area and New Hampshire where his father lives.

“Eddie was just looking for some stability, and he just never found it,” Donna Moreau of Milford said Thursday. “It was just too much for him.”

Moreau watched Eddie grow up with her son and their friend, Craig Violette, 16. She said she has many fond memories of them spending time together, going trick-or-treating and to school dances.

A funeral already was held for Eddie in New Hampshire, but Moreau wanted to make sure that Eddie’s friends in Old Town had a chance to remember their friend.

The mother arranged for a memorial service honoring Eddie to be held at 11 a.m. today at the Old Town United Methodist Church. The service, at which Moreau expects about 200 people, was donated by Old Town’s Birmingham Funeral Home.

Moreau said the three boys had grown up together and gone to the same schools since they were youngsters.

“They did all their firsts together,” she said. “It’s not supposed to be like this. Their firsts aren’t done yet.”

“He’s like more of a brother to me,” Craig said, sitting at the table with his head down.

The boys recalled fond memories of skateboarding with Eddie.

“He liked to show off a lot,” Craig said. Another friend, Tianna Leland, 16, remembered Craig and Eddie visiting her house and posing for pictures while wearing her cheerleading shorts decorated with hearts and ladybugs.

“Just the way he laughed and smiled, you’d have to laugh with him,” Jesse said.

And although friends recognized that Eddie had problems in Maine, they said things grew worse in New Hampshire.

Eddie wasn’t close to his father and preferred to spend time in Old Town, his friends said.

“He was really close to his mom,” Jesse said. “He had a hard time with [her death].”

Eddie attended Old Town schools all of his life and had planned to come back for his senior year at Old Town High School in a couple of weeks, according to police and friends.

But the tragic August accident in New Hampshire prevented that.

“A bunch of these kids decided to go out drinking,” Police Chief Joseph O’Brion of Litchfield, N.H., said Thursday in a telephone interview. “They’d evidently gotten ahold of some Budweiser beer, two 30 packs, and a couple of bottles of Southern Comfort.”

About an hour after the group of boys, ages 14 to 17, started drinking, they noticed Eddie was missing, but after looking for him for an hour, they couldn’t find him. One of the teens called their parents, who in turn called police.

Police found Eddie floating in the river a short while after they arrived, but it was too late. Eddie was “highly intoxicated,” O’Brion said, and had drowned.

Police have some leads as to who supplied the youngsters with alcohol and said they intend to press charges, but before any further action can be taken, they first must wait for the toxicology reports from Eddie’s autopsy. That could take another two to four weeks, O’Brion said.

“None of the other boys are being charged,” the police chief said. “They’re all young kids.”

Eddie is the second boy his Old Town friends have had to bury in the last six months. Five months to the day before Eddie’s death, another local boy died of a drug overdose, according to friends.

“It was pretty devastating for the same group of kids that now have lost Eddie,” Moreau said. “I’m angry that we have to do this again.”

Eddie’s friends said that if there were other activities and places for teens in the area to hang out, some people would change.

“They have nowhere to go,” Moreau said. “As a community we need to come together and stop [the drug and alcohol abuse].”

Old Town Police Officer Debbie Holmes, who also is the resource officer at the high school, said in a phone interview Friday that she knew Eddie both from school and as a neighbor.

“Unless we start changing some of the attitudes out there, we’re going to be doing this again,” Holmes predicted grimly.

Teens often deal with their grief by participating in the same behaviors that take their friends away from them, she pointed out.

Although some students discussed Eddie’s death on Thursday in the hallways of Old Town High School- the first day of school for students – less than a handful of teachers discussed the incident in or out of class, according to Eddie’s friends.

One of Moreau’s concerns is that the school is not providing enough education or resources for students and parents.

The mother said Eddie could have, and likely would have, sought help had he known where to go, or thought there was a place where he could turn.

Holmes said that the guidance department at the high school is available for students to go and talk if they want, and she also noted that her door always is open.

“I feel bad for Eddie. I feel bad for the kids, too,” Holmes said. “I just hope that they’re dealing with it in a way so that we’re not going to have to go through this again in another five months.”

Teens often have an attitude that nothing is ever going to happen to them, but it has happened to two Old Town youths in less than six months, Holmes said.

“I don’t know how people could not change their mind if you lose two people in five months,” the officer said. “It just boggles my mind to wonder why that wouldn’t change attitudes.”

Eddie’s friends said that although they hope this doesn’t happen again, they are afraid he won’t be the last friend they bury.

As a concerned parent, Moreau also is afraid.

“It’s just going to get worse, and I’m just not willing to bury another child,” she said.

Moreau said she hopes that Eddie’s death will make people more aware of the seriousness of the drug and alcohol problems facing the town.

“I’m not letting Eddie die in vain,” she said. “Eddie was a wonderful child. He had a problem, but he didn’t deserve to die.”

Donna Moreau of Old Town has helped make funeral arrangements for Eddie Cross. Her son, Jesse Moreau, and Cross were friends.