RENSSELAERVILLE — Like a friend, when Paula M. Britton spoke to her grandchildren about their personal lives, she gave them her attention and earnest advice.

Mrs. Britton died peacefully at her home in her sleep on Tuesday, Oct. 28, 2014. She was 64.

She was lively, gregarious, and expressive, using her hands sometimes to speak. Addressing a group or to ease someone, her daughter, Tamatha Keppler, said, Mrs. Britton might start with a joke or poke fun at herself.

“She never met a stranger,” Mrs. Keppler said. “If she did, they weren’t a stranger for long.”

For all of her levity, Mrs. Britton was seriously focused on her family — a disciplinarian with her children and a fun-loving grandmother. She and her husband, Randall S. Britton Sr., instilled the traditional values of hard work and keeping one’s word, their daughter said.

Mrs. Britton worked for the state’s Department of Corrections as a secretary for about 12 years before being promoted to the retirement system under the state Comptroller’s Office. She retired in 2012.

She was born on April 21, 1950 in Cobleskill, the daughter of the late Kathryn and Clyde E. Sisson, Sr. She first attended school in Middleburgh, later graduating from to Berne-Knox High School.

She waited tables at the Americana Inn in Albany after high school and married her husband at a young age. Their best friends were dating one another and introduced the couple.

Mr. Britton was a carpenter in Sweet Associates in Albany, where his father-in-law and other men in his family were employed. He was a general superintendent at Adirondack Construction in Glens Falls for 29 years.

Their marriage ended only with his death in 1996 at age 51.

“She never got over him,” said Mrs. Keppler. “She said he was her one true love and that was it for her.”

Taking after her father, Mrs. Britton was generous with her time, putting others’ needs over her own.

“There have been people that called who needed rides someplace who weren’t even family, and she would stop whatever she was doing and give them rides,” Mrs. Keppler said. She recalled loans her mother gave to people, even when she didn’t have much money, and the time she talked her grandson through his thoughts on what career path he might take.

“She actually helped a friend to be able to get his drivers’ license,” Mrs. Keppler said. “He was an adult. She actually took him out driving and pushed him and urged him to get his drivers’ license.”

Mrs. Britton was an active member of the South Berne Congregational Church and a frequent attendee at her grandchildren’s sporting events. If she was in a crowd, she could talk to anyone or liven up a mood.

“She was not a wallflower,” her daughter said. “She was not one to just sit there and say nothing.”

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Paula May Britton is survived by her sons, Randall Britton and his wife, Penny, and Todd Britton and his wife, Mary; her daughters, Tamatha Keppler and her husband, Patrick, and Samantha Britton and her fiancé, Abdul Johnson; her seven grandchildren, Meghan, Patrick, Ryan, Matthew, Danielle, Monique, and Kathryn; her sisters, Ida Pratt and Lillian Chrysler and her husband, Roger; her sister-in-law, Christine Sisson; numerous nieces and nephews; and her loving cousin and traveling companion, Bill Kniskern.

Her brother, Clyde E. Sisson Jr., died before her, as did her beloved husband, Randall S. Britton Sr.

Calling hours will be held on Friday, Oct. 31, from 3 to 7 p.m. at Fredendall Funeral Home, 199 Main Street in Altamont. A funeral service will be held on Saturday, Nov. 1, at 11 a.m. at the South Berne Congregational Christian Church, with interment to follow at the South Berne Cemetery.

Mourners may go online to fredendallfuneralhome.com.

Memorial contributions may be made to the South Berne Congregational Church at 101 Church Road, Berne, NY 12023.

— Marcello Iaia