Irene Lucille Adams was born August 7, 1925 in Washington County, Arkansas, near Hogeye, daughter of Jonah and Retta (Bartholomew) Cantrell. She was welcomed home by her older brother, Clifford "Pete." At age two her family moved to Strickler, Arkansas.

Growing up in hard times, she always remembered her dad working as a carpenter for $1.00 a day and taking side jobs cutting trees and hewing railroad ties for extra grocery money. They always grew a lot of vegetables and fruit, and raised animals.

Irene began school in a one room schoolhouse built by her grandpa Cantrell and his neighbors. The school ran out of money 3 months into the school year and Irene's dad was dissatisfied. They had an auction and sold most everything before loading up a small semi-trailer with what they had left to head for the unfamiliar state of Kansas on November 17, 1935. Late the following evening they had made it Waldron, Kansas, to Irene's uncle Jeff's home, where they stayed temporarily until they were able to purchase furniture and goods for their own farm house. For the first time they had running water in their home. Life on the farm for Irene included milking cows, separating cream, churning butter, making cottage cheese for the family, feeding hogs and chickens skim milk, raising hens, and gathering eggs to name a few. This time her one room country school included Sunday school and church every Sunday.

The year Irene graduated 8th grade, her father passed away. Her chores on the farm increased as she also attended Spring Township for two years, before the family moved to a farm northwest of Corwin. She finished high school at Attica graduating with the Class of 1944.

In March of 1944, a classmate came by with her brother, Ivan Adams. Ivan asked Irene to go to the movies with them and from then on they were inseparable.

On May 27, 1945, Irene and Ivan were baptized together in the pond at Irene's mother's family farm. They were married August 1, 1945 in Hazelton, Kansas, just before the end of World War II. They traveled to Anthony to get their wedding pictures taken, had a flat tire going and another one coming home. They came home on a rim and that was their honeymoon!

They made their home on the farm Ivan grew up at. They had no electricity, refrigerator or washer. They lived there 5 years welcoming two children, Stanley and Margie. In late November 1949, they finally got electricity, just in time to move to a farm near Spring Township, with no electricity!

Irene was a farm wife and stay at home mom, except for when she was a sub driver for the Berlin school bus. She had a love for Jesus and was a faithful member of the Anthony Church of Christ.

When she and Ivan purchased 80 acres northeast of Anthony, there was not a house on the land, so they moved to Anthony. In 1962, they expanded their farming operation, renting 480 acres. They worked and put in long and hard hours.

In 1985, Irene and Ivan moved north of Anthony. In 1991, she battled and beat breast cancer. They were blessed with 55 years of marriage before Ivan passed away on November 18, 2000. In 2001, Margie and her husband, Roger, took over the farming and Irene continued to help them with whatever she could.

Irene was very thankful to be able to live alone, cook, keep house, mow her own yard, garden and help out whenever she was needed. She lived to enjoy 84 harvests in Kansas.

On June 11, 2019, Irene passed away at the Anthony Medical Center at the age of 93. She was preceded in death by her parents, Jonah and Retta; husband, Ivan; brother, Pete and his wife, Juanita; and son-in-law, Roger Perry.

Irene will be deeply missed by her children: Stanley Adams and wife, Cathy, and Margie Perry; grandchildren: Carolyn Vahle and husband, Alan, Janice Perry, Leah Waymire and husband, James, and Brent Adams and wife, Meghan; great-grandchildren: Michelle Vahle, Lily Waymire, Claire and Sarah Adams, and Bristol Harris; and a host of other relatives and friends.

Funeral service will be held 2:00 p.m. Saturday, June 15, 2019 at the Anthony Church of Christ. Burial will follow in Spring Grove Cemetery, west of Anthony.

Visitation will be held 9:00 a.m. - 7:00 p.m. Friday at Prairie Rose Funeral Home, Anthony.

Memorials in memory of Irene may be made to the Church of Christ, American Heart Association or American Cancer Society, and may be sent in care of the funeral home.

Prairie Rose Funeral Home, 602 E. Main St., Anthony, KS 67003, is in charge of arrangements.