Irene Martha Cullen was born on 5 June 1922 in Chicago, Illinois to Henry and Clara Neumann and died on 3 November 2016 at the age of 94 from Alzheimer's.

Irene grew up in the Jefferson Park neighborhood in Chicago; met her husband, Bill, there and they spent most their life together in Glenview, Illinois. Bill worked at Kraft Foods and was a volunteer fireman in Glenview and Irene managed the cafeteria at Springman Junior High School. They square danced with the Glenview Squares.

Irene was a social butterfly and loved to entertain; although her passion was travel. She planned amazing trips: a covered wagon trek through the Teton's in Wyoming, toured the Utah State Parks seeing many of the places where the John Wayne westerns were filmed; cruised to Alaska, put 2,000 miles on their rental car driving throughout Ireland and square danced in Austria. In addition to traveling to virtually all the states in the US, Irene also visited England, Holland, Ireland, Germany, Austria, Italy, Switzerland and France.

At 87, Irene moved to Mercer Island, Washington to live with daughter and enjoyed attending the Mercer Island Community Center Senior luncheons.

She was preceded in death by her parents and her sister, Gertrude, and William (Bill) Cullen, her husband of 57 years. Irene is survived by her daughter Diane Cullen-Levin and granddaughter's Zoe and Mya Levin.

A memorial service will be held at Holy Trinity Lutheran Church, Mercer Island at 1:00pm on 18 December 2016 and Irene will be laid to rest next to Bill in Des Plaines, Illinois on 29 December 2016.

Donations may be sent to the Alzheimer's Association, P.O. Box 96011, Washington, DC 20090-6011 in Irene's memory in hopes that a cure for this devastating illness will be found soon.