Irene Mannix relaxes with a cup of tea at her home in 2008. (Photo by Lisa Aciukewicz)

After nearly 50 years in Harvard, West Bare Hill Road resident Irene Mannix will be relocating to her native Scotland this weekend, to be closer to her daughter and grandchildren. Mannix, former longtime teacher at what was then known as Harvard Elementary School, has more recently been known as creator of “Well Preserved” homemade jams, jellies, and shortbread. For more than 15 years, until December 2008, Mannix was a regular fixture at Harvard’s craft fairs and annual flea market. Her booth, with generous samples of her wares, was always a popular destination for customers. Mannix, an institution in town for as long as many people can remember, will be missed.

Mannix spent 43 years teaching, starting out in her native Edinburgh, Scotland, and ending here in Harvard. In a December 2008 interview with the Press, Mannix spoke fondly of several students who had special places in her memories.

One student, she said—Ian Tibbits—was put with her because there was no room in the “special school” for slow learners. “Just keep him busy,” she was told. She put him to work, opening the milk cartons, pulling up the shades, putting things away. By the end of the year he could read and spell and write. She told of another boy who came to her not speaking. Other teachers had given up on him, but she had him come in early every day and after a time he was reading aloud.

“I could never let a child go,” she said.

Mannix spent four years in Hong Kong at a school for children of military personnel, where she was a vice principal. Then, after a brief time in England, she fled the cold for Jamaica, where she met her future husband, Jack, a lawyer in D.C., who was on the island for business. They were married after a few months—“no point in wasting time,” she said. They had two children—a son who now lives in Colorado, and a daughter in Scotland. Jack died in 1995.

In the states, one of Mannix’s first jobs was in Bolton, teaching a group of third- and fourth-grade students deemed too difficult to attend a regular classroom. Mannix met with them in a building in the town center, which now houses the police department. There were no supplies and no special services, she said. After six months she went to Littleton, where she taught for three years, until the school told her she couldn’t stay on because of a law about citizenship. Parents got a petition going to change the law, but Mannix had already accepted a job in Harvard.

Mannix got her start on the fair circuit while she was teaching at Harvard Elementary School, teaming up with a colleague who was selling her homemade jam at fairs. Mannix’s specialty was shortbread, befitting her Scottish heritage. Before long she realized that, living as she did in the midst of fruit trees and berry bushes at her home on Slough Road, she should be making her own jam and jelly. That became her next venture, with a typical summer yielding 1,500 to 2,000 jars of fruits in all combinations, she said.

In 2007 Mannix gave up her large old home on Slough Road for a smaller house on West Bare Hill Road. When she moved, she vowed there would be no more orchard—she was done with all that hard work, she said. But she couldn’t hold out, and she let her daughter buy her three raspberry bushes. Then came peach trees. Still, she insisted she was cutting back, acknowledging that it was a lot of work, and for awhile continued to fill orders for people who called.

Besides making jams, jellies, and shortbreads, Mannix stayed active with other interests as well. Up until 11 years ago, she was swimming competitively, and until recently continued swimming “just for fun.” In 1999 she won two bronze medals in the National Senior Games in Orlando—that, after having taken six gold medals in the state meet. She also loved to ski and sail, and until fall 2007 she regularly took her sailboat out on Bare Hill Pond.

Now Mannix is moving on to the next chapter in her life. She has met many people and made many friends during her long and storied career, and in an e-mail to the Press this week said she has treasured her friends here, and hopes they will stay in touch with her.

Friends can write to Irene Mannix c/o Williams, 17 Long Park Place, Eliburn Livingston, West Lothian, Scotland.

Note: Portions of this article are from a Dec. 5, 2008, Harvard Press article written by Carlene Phillips. Logged-on, paid subscribers can access the Archive and search for Mannix to find it.