On Friday, March 27th, 2015, Irene Mae (McNett) Spencer, eldest daughter of Loren and Edith (Myrick) McNett, passed away quietly at Troy Community Hospital, just five days before her 98th birthday. She was born in Leolyn, Tioga County at the home of her grandmother, Armenda Landon Griswold, on a hill known as Jacob’s Ladder.
She graduated Canton high School with the class of 1936. She worked at many jobs during her life, including a cannery, a dairy, pipefitter’s assistant, a home for mentally and physically challenged children, as a school teacher in Rock Hill, MD, the former Crowe Nursing Home in Canton as well as the former Belmar Manufacturing Co. in Canton where she was employed for 25 years.
On March 4th, 1947, Irene married Willis J. Spencer, and they settled in the Spencertown section of Union Township. There they ran a diversified 72 acre farm and shared 53 years until Bill’s passing. She was the quintessential farm wife, taking pleasure in the planting of crops and caring for animals. Irene continued to live at the farm, milk her cow, collect her eggs, work her vegetable garden and apple orchard and preserve the fruits of her labors until very recently when her health would no longer permit it, and she relocated to the Sherwood Retirement and Personal Care Home. Irene accepted the Savior in 1936 at the Newelltown Seventh Day Adventist Church, later transferring her membership to the Canton S.D.A. Church, where she taught the children’s Sabbath School class for many years. Irene was a very outgoing and friendly person, who had a knack for remembering the names and the slightest details about everyone she met even just once. She always made you feel welcome and treated you like family. She lived by the philosophy that there are no strangers, only friends that we haven’t met yet. Although she never had children of her own Irene had several “adopted” children and grandchildren. Her staunch, (sometimes stubborn) independent streak, coupled with her insurmountable faith in the Lord, sustained her life for nearly a century.
Irene is survived by her sisters, Delores Meyer of California and Lenora Stackhouse of Williamsport, as well as numerous nieces, nephews and cousins, and her extended “adopted” family.
In addition to her husband, she was preceded in death by her brother, Stanley McNett and special great-nephew Dustin McNett. Visitation will be 2:00 to 3:00 p.m. Tuesday, March 31st, at Morse & Kleese Funeral Home, 94 N. Center St., Canton. Service will be at 3 o’clock. Interment will follow in North Union Cemetery. (morseandkleesefuneralhome.com
