Irene Palmer

Irene Bernier Harris Palmer, an extraordinary mother and friend, passed away on Sunday June 29 of age-related causes. She was 99.

Irene was born on Nov. 30, 1925, to Yvonne and Harold Harris on the family farm between Taber and Barnwell Alberta.

She graduated from the Lethbridge Collegiate Institute in 1943 and attended Brigham Young University for a year before being called to serve a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Georgia and Florida.

She married her sweetheart Byron Cazier Palmer at the Cardston Alberta Temple on July 10,1952.

She was a devoted and fun mother, who also worked as an executive assistant.

She and her husband were adventurers, living over the course of their lives in Canada, Venezuela, Colombia, the United States and Kenya, where-ever Byron’s engineering career took them. After his retirement, the two served a mission in Hawaii, where Irene was a temple endowment worker. She also served in that capacity at the Cardston Temple.

Irene was a gifted singer and storyteller, who once had her own musical radio show in Lethbridge, “Songs For Sunday,” on CJOC. She had a gift for mimicry and anecdotes and was often called on to tell lively humorous stories that captivated adults and children who would sit at her feet both spell-bound and laughing.

As a child Irene survived polio with a disability, but she never let it slow her down. She was active all her life and especially enjoyed canoeing with her husband and family members on Alberta’s lakes and rivers. She swam daily for exercise until reluctantly having to use a wheelchair. When she graduated to a power chair, she had to be reminded to slow down because the people walking with her couldn’t keep up.

Endlessly curious about the world she lived in and the people who surrounded her, she was always asking questions to know more in a life-long quest for deeper understanding. It was no surprise to her friends and family to learn that she was deep into physicist’s Stephen Hawking’s A Brief History of Time, or historian Doris Kearns Goodwin’s The Bully Pulpit. When she found more Muslims in her circle, she read the Koran in her effort toward a more complete understanding. Her favorite books, though, were the scriptures of her faith, and hers were well-thumbed and notated in her tidy script.

A deeply spiritual woman, she followed her religion’s precepts of loving kindness and made friends everywhere she went. She hardly knew a stranger. She enjoyed working in her church, serving as a relief society president, a Sunday school teacher, a musical director, and especially enjoyed working with youth and children.

Irene is survived by her sister, Jeanann Hutchings, of Orem, UT and San Luis Obispo, CA; son Stephen (Priscilla) of Windsor, CA; daughters Susan (Craig Cherry) of Eugene, OR; Linda Nielsen (Thomas) of Barnwell, AB; Elaine Cox (Martin) of Sammamish, WA; seven grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.

Services will be held on Tuesday, August 5, 2025 at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 205 Fairmont Blvd South. Friends and relatives are invited to meet with the family at 11 a.m. to 11:45 a.m., at the church. A Memorial Service will follow at 12:00pm with refreshments at 1 p.m. Graveside inurnment will be at Archmount Cemetery at 2:30 p.m.

In lieu of flowers please consider an act of service or a donation to a charity in Irene's name.

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