The late Senator Samuel P. Roberts once lauded Iris Elaine Deal as “a mother, a grandmother, a wife, a leader, a friend of Douglas County, and the type of lady we’d all love to have in our communities.” Iris’s passing at age 87 on April 19, 2025, leaves a void in the hearts of those who treasured her, but her legacy of love for and service to others will live on.
When Senator Roberts spoke his words of praise more than a quarter-century ago at the end of Iris’s career, the Georgia Senate was honoring her at the State Capitol with a Resolution of Commendation for her years of dedication to the community and her work with children at the Douglas County Public Library.
Iris’s professional focus on the development and welfare of children had grown out of her own early childhood experiences. Born on September 24, 1937, in Tampa, Florida, she and her three young siblings were taken to Colorado to live with relatives after their parents separated. Eventually, the children were placed in the Colorado State Home for Dependent and Neglected Children when their mother could no longer care for them.
At age five, Iris was adopted by Elizabeth Carney, an English professor at the University of Northern Colorado. Professor Carney was a single woman, which in the early forties made it exceedingly difficult for her to adopt a child. Undaunted, she persisted and finally took her daughter home to Greeley, Colorado in the winter of 1943.
Iris had been born with unusually fine musical abilities. Her mother recognized these talents early on and provided singing and piano lessons with the best instructors in town. In the summer of 1953, she arranged a European tour that had Iris performing at hotels in London, Naples, Paris, and other cities. Renowned operatic tenor Jan Peerce was so impressed with the 16-year-old’s coloratura soprano voice, surprisingly mature delivery, and repertoire that he asked her to join one of his tours, an opportunity her mother reluctantly declined. Iris later won a vocal music scholarship to the University of Redlands in California and continued her music studies at the University of Northern Colorado.
As a young mother, Iris teamed with her first husband, Vernon Spencer, as co-director of the choir at Trinity Episcopal Church in Greeley. She often sang Spencer’s original compositions at church and civic events, sometimes performing alongside her three children, whom she encouraged to develop artistically with lessons in piano, voice, and dance. Outside the choir, Iris used her formal training to become a popular private voice teacher.
Although Iris had no formal training in poetry, she became an accomplished poet and founded Douglas Poets in Focus in 1987. The group published a series of books, Songs of Sweetwater, and honored Iris with a special plaque of appreciation for nurturing and mentoring her fellow members.
Nurturing young children at the library, Iris adroitly combined her literary and musical gifts, especially when using storytelling to get kids excited about reading. Countless children undoubtedly hold fond memories of her reading and singing to them animatedly in a Mother Goose costume she had made on her own sewing machine.
Not content to play only fairy-tale characters in the library, Iris made her community-theatre acting debut at the age of 65 as Pauline Felts in Radio T.B.S. (Trailer Park Broadcasting Scandals) at Douglasville’s Community Alliance of Stage and Theatre (C.A.S.T.). On opening night, she was delighted to have her family and friends in the audience cheering on her hilariously inventive performance.
Iris’s community involvement extended beyond the arts and her library work. Over the years, she dedicated innumerable hours to causes supporting children and literacy. She steadfastly advocated for the Reading is Fundamental (RIF) program, served on an advisory panel for the Douglas County Adoptive/Foster Parent Association, and volunteered at Inner Harbour Hospital.
In 1977, Iris met Jim Deal at the Episcopal Church of the Good Shepherd in Austell. The two married in 1978, and for the next 47 years, lived in the Williamsburg-inspired stone cottage Jim built for them, largely with his own hands. Iris and Jim loved tending to their formal English gardens and cultivating an astonishing variety of wildflowers and other plant life. They also enjoyed traveling, especially to England. On Sundays, their greatest joy was attending St. Margaret’s Episcopal Church together in Carrollton.
Iris was preceded in death by her mother, Elizabeth Carney.
Her survivors include her husband of 47 years, James R. Deal; son James P. Spencer; daughter-in-law Beth Bullock Spencer; daughter Susan K. Spencer; son William T. Spencer; granddaughter Lauren A. Bonet Spencer; grandson-in-law David Bonet Montes; great-granddaughter Ona D. Bonet Spencer; grandson Zachary A. Smith (Paige Cook); niece Amy R. Thigpen (Lonnie); and niece Anna E. Poe (Robert).
A memorial service will be held at 11:00 a.m. on Saturday, April 26, 2025, at St. Margaret’s Episcopal Church, 606 Newnan Street, Carrollton, GA 30117. Cremation. In lieu of flowers, the family suggests memorial donations to St. Margaret’s Episcopal Church.
Whitley Garner at Rosehaven is honored to be entrusted with the arrangements of Mrs. Iris Elaine Deal.
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