Irene Fleming

Irene passed peacefully at the age of 106 on December 9, 2012. Born into a horse and buggy, lantern light, pre-telephone world, she left one that travels in space and communicates through the cyber world. Irene was born September 3, 1906 in Wheatland, Texas, now part of Dallas. She grew up as a farm girl tending dairy cows and picking cotton. She graduated from the University of Texas with a degree in Home Economics and taught school in Texas as a young woman. She moved to Mercer Island in 1981 to be near her only daughter, Jean Strasburger, and her four granddaughters. She was very active in the Mercer Island United Methodist Church serving on the Outreach Committee, participating in Church Bazars, sewing children’s choir robes and blankets for street people, and meeting weekly with the church women who refer to her as the glue that kept them together. She was active in Strivers and helped established the quilting group at the Community Center.Irene completed 20 quilts, with every single stitch lovingly added by hand, and was honored at the Washington State Fair. Many of these quilts were made for specific family members, and all of her granddaughters great grandchildren can boast of their “Mammaw quilts.” Irene’s favorite poetic passage was “Let me live in my house by the side of the road, And be a friend of man.” From the poem “House by the Side of the Road” by Sam Walter Foss. She fulfilled this ethic and witnessed countless changes in the way of the world from her seat at “the side of the road” for 106 years!

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