Jean Louise SPENCER

SPENCER, Jean Louise (nee STEVENS) November 21, 1926 – March 25, 2019

When she was around 10, and attending public school near Reading, England, Jean Spencer won her first prize for art: a fountain pen. Decades later, after her daughters had more or less left the nest, she returned to drawing and painting, and this became the great passion of her middle and later years.

Jean was born in Glen Cove, Long Island, the daughter of Thomas and Christina Stevens. She had two brothers, Tom and Jim, and early on, the family lived on the estates of the well-to-do, where her father was a landscape gardener. The family later moved back to the United Kingdom, where both her parents had been born, before returning to North America and settling in Canada in 1937.

After the Second World War, Jean met an irresistible former air force warrant officer, Jack Spencer, and they married in 1948. By the early 1950s, they had settled in the new Toronto suburb of Scarborough, where they raised their daughters. Jack was an electrician, Jean a full-time homemaker. But she had not forgotten her art. By the mid-1970s, Jean was studying and teaching oils, pen and ink, and her favourite medium, chalk pastel. She went on to create and sell hundreds of paintings, with Jack gamely hauling frames, easels and other art equipment to her shows. She was an award-winning member of the Scarborough Art Guild and a founding member of PastelArtists.ca

Jean was proud of her daughters, Barbara (Peter Law) and Tina (Don Butler); and her two grandsons, Sean Fitzgerald (Amy) and Adam Curley; and was delighted by her great-grandsons, Daniel and Kian. Predeceased by husband Jack (also known to the family as Agent 007), she spent her last years among the good folk at the Richmond Hill Retirement Residence, before moving recently into long-term care.

The Spencer family would like to warmly thank the staff at Richmond Hill Retirement Residence, and the many friends who looked out for her there.

We urge anyone who would like to honour Jean to make a donation to the Alzheimer Society of Canada or a dementia charity of your choice.

We’ll announce a celebration of Jean’s life in the coming weeks.