Audrey Mae Spencer

(“Tell those people to quiet down.  We are trying to sleep.” (Audrey, with this episode of aphasia, was trying to get comfortable in her wheel chair. We were trying to decide which chair [companion or wheel] would be most convenient as well as most comfortable for her)

(One of the grandchildren said:  But Gramma, they haven’t seen one another in a long time.)

“Well, as long as they are descent.”

(Later one of her grandchildren said:  I’m going home to eat.)

“Why didn’t you have some of the free stuff they have handed out all day.”

“My mouth is feeling funny.”

“I don’t want to die.”

(This would have been another opportune time for me to talk with Mother about not fearing the afterlife and to reassure her that she would be going to heaven where she would be with Dad and her mother and father. Audrey’s early religious teaching had sustained her throughout her life.)

Audrey died March 11, 2007, eight days shy of her ninety-fifth birthday.  Her ashes are buried next to Milton in the Rathbun Cemetery, across from the Knotty Oak Baptist Church in Coventry, Rhode Island.  Her parents, William J.B. Spencer and Mary Jane (née Vaughn) Spencer are also buried in the same area.

Five prior Spencer generations are buried in the two Spencer historical cemeteries on the historical Spencer Homestead land in the Middle Road/Partridge Run area of East Greenwich, Rhode Island.  Audrey was the last Spencer born on this Spencer Homestead on Middle Road.  Her father sold the homestead when she was twelve year old and the family moved to a large, upscale house on Washington Street in Coventry, Rhode Island.