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Irene Gracey Stapp - Homemaker and Writer
Irene Gracey Stapp of Manassas died Friday. May 18, in Prince William County Hospital She was 86
Irene was born in Indianapolis, Indiana, on January 22.1921, to Irene Cobb Gracey Outlaw and Sidney Outlaw. Her parents were divorced early in her childhood, and she grew up in the Gracey family home m Clarksville. Tennessee, with her mother and grandparents, and surrounded by her great-grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins in a large and energetic household of word-lovers. Among her relatives was the noted 1920s novelist and literary critic Evelyn Scott.
Upon her grandfather’s death the family began to scatter, and at the age of 9 she moved wilh her mother and an aunt and unde to England, where she attended Wentworth, a girls' boarding school on the southern coast, spending her holidays m London with her family It was on her first day at Wentworth that she met her lifetime friend. Vana Glendinning Scott. Following Irene's return to the US at age 16, she and Vana maintained a vivid trans-Atlantic friendship, via long and frequent letters and a handful of visits, ter 70 years. Upon her return to Tennessee in 1937 Irene lived in Franklin, where she completed high school and attended business college and where she and her future husband. Grady Stapp, had the good fortune to meet at a bus stop Grady left Vanderbilt University to enter the Army Air Corps after Pearl Harbor, and he and Irene were married in 1942, three months before he left for pilot's training
She spent the early years of her long marriage moving from being a wartime military wife to a homemaker and finally, in 1957, a devoted mother Throughout her life she loved dogs, gardening, reading, the study of theosophy, and really hard crosswords
Some of her most absorbing occupations, however, came to her later in life, including painting and, most notably, writing She launched into the writing of her first novel in her seventies completed it and began another, which she completed this winter and was in the process of revising at the time of her death She also left the notes she had begun compiling of her experiences in the last year as a resident of CatonMerchant House assisted living facility, which was to be the setting of a third book she was planning
Preceded in death in 2001 by her husband of 58 years, she is survived by her daughter. Tutt StappHams of Castleton. Virginia, and her grandson. Jamie Harris of Bishop. California She is also mourned by her former son-in-law. Hunt Harris, and his extended family, to whom she remained devoted as well
A memorial service wiH be held on Thursday. May 31. at 1:00 pm. at Tnmty Episcopal Church in Manassas, with the Rev Vmnie Lamson presiding
In lieu of flowers, please make memorial contnbutions to Wakefield School. PO Box 107, The Plains, Virginia. 20198 specifying their use tor library acquisitions
The Baker Funeral Home in Manassas. Virginia is handling the arrangements.
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