Edna Young, a much respected teacher whose warmth and good humour enriched many lives in Co. Fermanagh, passed away peacefully on December 18, 2015 in Millcroft Nursing Home, Enniskillen.

In an effort to summarise what was a full and active life, her family drew on a simple quotation for the order of service at her funeral - she touched nothing that she did not adorn.

It was an assessment shared by the hundreds who came to St Macartin’s Cathedral to say farewell to a mother-of-three who was born in Belfast but made Enniskillen her home.

Her open, friendly and approachable manner was recalled by many afterwards in the Cathedral Hall, as was her great sense of fun.

Their memories painted a picture of a woman who had countless friends, enlivened any group she was in, possessed no airs and graces and treated everyone the same.

To family, friends and colleagues, with Edna Young it was very much a case of what you saw is what you got.

Edna spent her early years in Belfast. Her father and mother were William (Bill) and Matilda (Tillie) McClelland. Her education was at Orangefield Primary School and Methodist College.

When her father’s career path took him to Lurgan she transferred to Lurgan College and then, in 1958, to Enniskillen Collegiate when her father was appointed Head Postmaster of Fermanagh.

It was at Enniskillen Collegiate that she first met her future husband George Young, who was teaching there at the time. Their paths did not cross again until some years later.

When she left the Collegiate in 1959 after A levels she was undecided whether to train as a nurse or as a teacher. Initially she went as a trainee nurse to the Royal Victoria Hospital in Belfast but, after some months, felt that her heart really lay in teaching. So, in 1960, she began the primary teacher training course at the city’s Stranmillis College.

She excelled in her new vocation and on completion of the course in 1963 was awarded the Mahon Prize as the top female primary teacher of her year.

The qualities that earned her that honour shone throughout her career. Edna was regarded as a very skilled teacher. The warm and caring side of her nature, which had attracted her initially to nursing, was also characteristic of her approach to teaching.

She involved herself totally in genuine care and concern for each individual child in her classes, whatever his or her ability or background, and in return won the real affection of them all.

Edna insisted on the same respect and consideration for the disadvantaged as for the more fortunate child and this was particularly evident during her time teaching in the Language Unit of the Model Primary School.

The Model provided her first and last job in teaching, with stints at schools in Co Armagh in between.

She first joined the staff at the Model in 1963. A year later she met George again. A friendship flourished and they married in July 1966.

That same year they moved to Portadown, Edna to teach in Seagoe Primary School and George in Portadown College.

When their first child Ian was born in June 1967, Edna withdrew from teaching for some years to be at home with him and later his sister Helen who was born in 1969.

Subsequently she returned to full time teaching in Edenderry Primary School, Portadown.

In 1976 she came back to Enniskillen when George became principal of Enniskillen Collegiate. She taught again for some time until her third child David was born in 1978 after which she took another career break to raise him.

When David was old enough, she returned to teaching at Enniskillen Model, performing a number of roles before taking on a full time post in the school’s Language Unit in 1989. Edna worked there until she took early retirement in 1997, when her husband also retired.

Retirement gave the couple more opportunity to travel and they were very frequent visitors to Australia where their daughter Helen has lived for almost 20 years. They also journeyed to Egypt, where Ian lived for a period.

In 2003 Edna began to show signs of what was then diagnosed as early stages of Alzheimer’s disease.

She coped with this admirably but found herself gradually no longer able to cope with being in the organisations to which she had belonged or the social life she had enjoyed.

Edna still continued to go on frequent trips abroad with George but the inexorable progression of the illness eventually led to the point, in July 2008, where the family reluctantly realised her condition could no longer be managed at home.

She was admitted initially to Millverne Residential Home and then to Millcroft Nursing Home.

Edna’s devotion to her husband and children and their families was total. They felt the same about her and are grievously diminished by her passing.