She'll be remembered for her many achievements and accolades, including the honorary Doctor of Sacred Letters she received in recognition of her outstanding careers, and for being an inspiration to students at Humberside Collegiate Institute where she taught from 1931 until 1969. However, her nephews John Irwin and his younger brother Bill Irwin each have a dramatically different memories of their aunt: in her strong Christian faith and her puffy doughnuts.
"She was one of those who truly believed," said John Irwin, of his aunt, who became a preacher when she retired from teaching at Emmanuel Evangelical Church.
One of its founding members, Irwin was asked to fill the pulpit after the death of the church's founding pastor, H.H. Kent, in 1972. She served as minister and then co-minister (with assistance from others) well into her nineties.
"She was a kind person, concerned for all of us," John Irwin told The Villager.
She made such an impression on his daughter that she named her daughter Phoebe Grace after the baby's great, great aunt.
As for Bill, "I remember her cooking. She had a specialty she used to prepare up at the island," he said, referring to the vacation spot that the Irwin family owned on Boshkung Lake, near Haliburton.
Irwin would make them in her wood stove, rolling the round balls of dough in cinnamon and sugar once they came out of the oven, Bill recalled.
"They were absolutely delicious. As children, we would eat and eat and eat them," he recalled, laughing. "She was always very generous to me."
Not only did Irwin cook on the island, but she loved to write her books and vacation there, her nephew said.
"My dad and my uncle built the cottage there on the lake in 1926," he said.
Despite shoulder replacement surgery, Irwin paddled herself to that cottage on the lake into her 90s. John Irwin attributes his aunt's health to her four daily walks to and from Humberside Collegiate.
"She walked herself to school and then walked home for lunch," he said. "She was in great shape."�Irwin taught Latin, Classical Greek, history and English at the high school and became head of the department in 1942. She retired from teaching in 1969 and then from preaching in 1985, but continued giving special lectures and serving as a guest preacher until she was 95. She only began to slow down as she approached 100. There is an award for excellence in teaching established in her name.
Irwin penned her first novel at 20. After the book, called Compensation, was rejected by a publisher, she threw it in a drawer where it stayed for several decades. Meanwhile, she wrote many more novels. Her first published novel, Least of All Saints, was rejected in the 1930s by John McClelland senior, founder of McClelland and Stewart, but after the war, she resubmitted it to his son Jack, who published it and subsequent books.
Irwin held a master of arts degree in classics from the University of Toronto and served on the university's senate from 1952 to 1956.
"We were very proud of her," Bill said.