LAKE GEORGE — Mary (Archard) LaPan, 80, formerly of Smith Street, passed away of cancer on Friday, August 26, 2016 at The Pines in Glens Falls.
Born on April 10, 1936 in Glens Falls, she was the daughter of the late Wallace and Pearl (Harris) Archard.
Mary graduated in 1954 from Lake George High School. After graduation, she was employed as a clerk at various businesses in the Lake George area.
Mary was an avid fan of NASCAR and enjoyed watching the Yankees, the team she supported since the 1950s. She purchased her small home in Lake George in 1967, gradually improved it, kept it neat as a pin, and lived there with exceptional thrift. In her illness, she wanted only to return to her “little house in Lake George.”
Mary possessed a strong intelligence, aesthetic sense and memory. She was a source of information about many of the early residents of Harrisena, telling, for example, how her grandfather, Leroy Harris, had an aversion to thunderstorms ever since the 1917 lightning strike that burned his barns, and how her great uncle Clarence Harris humorously showed up to fight a grass fire with a watering can.
In her youth at Harrisena, Mary enjoyed climbing Sugar Loaf Mountain, camping with her family on the Happy Family islands, swimming at Marion Harris’s beach at Kattskill Bay, and spending time with her cousins and best friends Nan and Joyce Harris, whose humorous sayings she would quote decades later. She also recalled visits with her Archard relatives, of Argyle, and kept in touch with them until her passing. She regretted having to miss the recent Archard family reunion.
Besides her parents, her sisters, Patricia Payne and Jean Jackson, her nieces, Cynthia Jackson and Kim Munoz, and her twin brother, Malcolm Archard passed away before her.
Survivors include her son, Wade LaPan of Hudson Falls; her daughter, Michelle Joseph and her husband Ted, of Lake George; her two grandchildren, Jessica Joseph and Joshua Joseph, both of Lake George; her brothers and sisters, Douglas Archard of Newmarket, New Hampshire, Terry Archard of Middle Granville, Sandra Smith of Argyle and Gavin Archard of Bright, Ontario; and several nieces and nephews.
There will be no calling hours.
The family suggests that memorial donations be made to the charity of one’s choice.
Arrangements are under the direction of the Carleton Funeral Home, Inc., 68 Main Street in Hudson Falls.
