KNOX — To her family, Jocelyn C. Fairlee was the “most positive and strongest person” they knew.

She died Sunday, July 17, 2016, after a courageous battle with cancer and with her loving family by her side.  She was 51.

She was born in Red Hook, July 29, 1964, the daughter of Harry “Skip” and Geraldine  Conn. After graduating from Red Hook High School, she attended the State University of New York College of Agriculture and Technology at Cobleskill. Cobleskill.

The career she then began was long-lasting.  For more than 25 years, Mrs. Fairlee worked at the engineering firm Malcolm Pirnie (now Arcadis), becoming a senior project administrator.

Her interests, apart from her work, were wide-ranging, both indoors and outdoors. She loved spending time in the kitchen, “experimenting with new recipes,” her family says. “A great cook,” she drew inspiration from the cooking shows she loved to watch.

Mrs. Fairlee’s  family said her connection with nature remained a constant in her life. She  loved to share her observations of nature with her family, at home and on trips.

Stopping at antiques shops was another avocation. “She loved to collect antiques and decorate her home with them.”

Her love of animals encompassed both cats and dogs, her family says, but German shepherds were always first in her affections.

Nothing , however, was more important to her than “the time she cherished with with her husband, son, family, and friends.”

She enthusiastically supported her son’s athletic career both in high school and college.

Faced with cancer, her family says, she kept smiling and continued to live by her motto, “It is what it is.”  In addition, she worked to help raise funds for  cancer research.

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Jocelyn C. Fairlee is survived by Roy, her husband of 24 years; her son, Travis; her mother, Geraldine Conn; her  sisters, Jodi Almgren and her husband, Gary, and Jill Smith and her husband, Gary; also by her in-laws Toot and Roy Fairlee; a sister-in-law, Lisa Ericson and her husband, John;  and by a brother-in-law, Jeff Fairlee, as well as by many aunts, uncles, nieces, and nephews.

Her father, Harry Conn, died before her.

Calling hours will be held at New Comer Funeral Home, 343 New Karner Road, Albany, Sunday, July 24,  from 4 to 7 p.m. A funeral service will be held at the funeral home, on Monday, July 25  at 10 a.m. Interment will be at Woodlawn Cemetery, Berne.