SANBORNTON - Isabelle Reneau, 95, of Hunkins Pond Rd, Sanbornton, NH died in the early evening of August 25, 2016 after a brief stay at Mountain Ridge Rehabilitation Center in Franklin.
Isabelle was born on December 21, 1920 in Ashland, NH to Thomas and Laura Seeley, both bakers. She was raised with her elder sister Dorothy (deceased) on a farm in Tilton and attended The Tilton School and then Laconia High School. She married young to Elwyn Reneau of Laconia (deceased) and raised three sons -- Jeffrey, Jerald and James – who survive her.
After a brief stint in the 1950s as waitress at The Hickory Stick Restaurant in Belmont, Isabelle became a clerk at Laconia Savings Bank, where she worked until she turned 82. She always held her colleagues at work and her neighbors around town in high regard and hadn’t an enemy in the world. From the Reneau’s Sanbornton farm, in the 1950s Isabelle founded The Great Bay 4-H Club, nurturing interest in farm life in her kids and other members of the Club. A child of The Great Depression, Isabelle practiced thrift and recycling long before environmentalists took up the cause. Each summer she would freeze and preserve home grown vegetables enough to last a year. She was a good country cook.
As with her own mother, Family was the center of Isabelle’s existence. Up until the last month of her life, she kept in active contact with four generations – sister-in-law, nieces and nephew, sons, grandchildren and great grandkids. Until the confinements of this past year, she attended the UCC church on Upper Bay Rd in Sanbornton.
As Anne Reneau-Major, granddaughter, put it: “Isabelle…whose soul lies in the strength of the soil and beauty of the flowers. A beautiful woman.”
Calling hours will be held from 4Pm to 7Pm on Wednesday, August 31, 2016 at the Wilkinson-Beane-Simoneau-Paquette Funeral Home, 164 Pleasant Street, Laconia, using the Carriage House entrance.
A funeral service will be held at 11AM on Thursday, September 1, 2016, also at the funeral home.
Burial will follow in the family plot at Union Cemetery, Academy Street, Laconia.
Wilkinson-Beane-Simoneau-Paquette Funeral Home & Cremation Services, 164 Pleasant Street, Laconia, N.H. is assisting the family with the arrangements.