This site is to celebrate the life of Frances Elizabeth Peers, much loved wife to John, and Mum to Michael, Rebecca, Anna and Stephen, and sister to Rachel.

Fran lived a long and full life, in the service of the church and as a home maker.  She was particularly creative, and enjoyed many hobbies which expressed this.  These included all kinds of crafts - knitting, sewing, crochet, dress making, cross stitch and card marking to name but a few.  Many friends and relatives will still have a beautiful hand made card from Fran, made with love to celebrate a special event and latterly containing a removable paper insert so that the card can be re-gifted to another recipient.  Her grand children have all enjoyed hand made sweaters and cardigans in their favourite colours over the years, and Becca and Anna had many home made outfits when they were children.  

Her cooking was legendary.  From delicious and hearty home cooked meals, all made from scratch every day, including home made bread (two varieties), through a period of home made yoghurt, vats of home made marmalade and chutney to her well known and hugely anticipated baking, Fran was a culinary expert.  This was a woman who made puff pastry from scratch to create a lavish custard slice, added the exact number of marzipan balls to her simnel cake to represent the apostles, and was firm in her conviction that it was jam before cream on a home made scone.

She also had the gift of green fingers.  There was nothing she could not grow.  Her garden in Leominster was a riot of colour from Spring to Autumn, full of carefully cultivated blooms.  Every windowsill in the house groaned under the weight of several pot plants.  Every year she would populate an entire plant stall at the Summer and Christmas Fayres with Nan (Alice Mary Peers), and between them they would take cuttings from any and every available plant (including the Head Mistress' office) to sell to raise funds for the church.  She had a thriving vegetable garden too when her children were at home, producing potatoes, curly kale and string beans and some very unappreciated marrows amongst other things, and she also grew strawberries and plums which she scolded the wasps and insects away from.

Fran loved to keep her mind busy.  She read voraciously, to her children when they were small, and always had a book on the go herself.  Radio 4 was her constant companion as she went about her daily household tasks, with A Thought for the Day, Woman's Hour, A Book at Bedtime and of course the Archers as hot favourites.  Indeed Radio 4 was playing as she passed, with her til the end.  She taught herself to do the cryptic crossword over the years, and loved jigsaw puzzles and sudoku - anything to tickle the grey matter.  Vascular dementia was a cruel illness for Fran, who was proud of her intelligence, and it robbed her of many pleasures and hobbies  in those last 3 years.

Fran was a stalwart Christian and member of the church her whole life.  She supported her husband John in his ministry and her life's work was in service of his calling.  Always part of the Mothers' Union in every parish, always in church on Sunday, as well as decorating their various parish churches with beautiful flower arrangements over the years including spectacular flower festivals where she copied a stunning waterfall of flowers flowing from the pulpit to the floor which she had seen on a visit to a cathedral.

Fran lived a full and enriched life and pursued her passions for nearly all of her 84 years.  We are asking for donations in her memory to Dementia.org.