Leona I. Webb, 95, Sackets Harbor

SACKETS HARBOR, NY — Leona Irene Webb, 95, died July 8, 2018.

Born in the rural farming community of Western Star, Ohio, on July 8, 1923, to Wilhelmina and Frederick Braun, Leona (Braun) Webb passed away July 8, 2018 in Watertown, NY.

Leona began her education in a one-room schoolhouse near her family’s farm and attended high school in Norton, Ohio. She excelled at handwriting and reading, and had an eye for drawing and sketching, especially birds and landscapes. Those skills and interests served Leona well as a mother, as she instilled a love of reading, art, penmanship, and an appreciation of the natural world in her children, and in many of her grandchildren as well. She enjoyed a long and active life, with a keen interest in gardening, birds, travel, Scrabble, hand quilting and fine embroidery.

On September 6, 1943 she married Robert Clinton Webb. The couple lived in Ohio until 1950, when they moved to Northern New York, returning to Clint’s family home on Chestnut Ridge near Sackets Harbor. As a young mother Leona took her children on walks and picnics along the lakeshore, encouraging them to draw, to look, and to notice the sights and sounds of the world around them. A stay-at-home mother until 1963, Leona began her career at Mercy Hospital in Watertown working first as a nurse’s aide and later as ward clerk on the pediatric floor of Mercy Hospital.

She retired from Mercy in 1988 to actively tend her gardens and lawn, to spend time with her grandchildren, and to travel with her brother Alvin and his wife Wava, sharing their companionship on driving tours through the Canadian Maritimes. Leona liked visiting family, and took many trips over the years to South Carolina, Virginia, Ohio, Oregon, and Arizona to “keep in touch.” In 2001 she visited family stationed in the Netherlands, with highlights being a day walking in the Keukenhof Gardens and a bicycle ride along canals from Rotterdam to Nieuwekirk.

Leona was the last of her six Braun siblings and their respective spouses.

She is survived by three daughters and a son: Mary Ellen Bisnett, Christine Anne (Douglas) Eggleston, Lois Irene (Dan) Benson, and James Clinton Webb, as well as grandchildren Rebecca, Victoria, Paul, and Laura Bisnett, and Paula (Bill) Spaulding; Adrian Burkard and Lauren Eggleston; Heather Greenier and Melissa Westmoreland; and, Wendy Webb, as well as several great-grandchildren, grandnieces and grandnephews.

Leona’s husband, Clinton, died in 1981; a son-in-law, Paul Bisnett, passed away in 2016.

Leona wished especially to be remembered to her nieces Judy and Janet, Ann and Jane, to her quilting friends in Sackets Harbor, and to her dear neighbors, the Gorman family, on Chestnut Ridge.

The family wishes to thank Samaritan Keep’s 2nd Floor Staff for their friendship, compassion, and care.

Funeral arrangements are entrusted to the Johnson Funeral Home in Dexter, NY.

A celebration of Leona’s life will be announced at a later date. Gifts in Leona Webb’s memory may be made to the North Country Bird Club, the Minna Anthony Nature Center, or to the SPCA in Watertown, NY.

Online condolences may be made to dexterfuneralhome.com.