Nellis "Paddy" Padrin Engen

Paddy Engen, of Maplewood, Minnesota, longtime resident of Hugo, Minnesota, died peacefully age 76 on August 5, 2025. She was a resident at the Memory Care unit of The Shores of Lake Phalen, Maplewood. We are grateful to the caring and kind staff of the Shores who attended to her as she reached the end of a 2-year struggle with Parkinson's Disease with Lewy Body dementia.

Paddy was born January 8, 1949 in St. Paul, Minnesota. She was the daughter of Nellis Ruth Engen, nee Fisher, and C. Arthur Engen. She graduated from White Bear Lake High School in 1967 and received a bachelors degree in French and Music from St Olaf College, Northfield, Minnesota in 1971.

She worked at State Farm Insurance Company after college, where she met her future husband Randy; they married in 1977. Over the decade of the 1980s, Paddy and Randy designed and built their unique house on 20 acres in Hugo. Over many years, from the 1980s until the 2020s, she was prominent in the purebred dog community, in particular with the Flatcoated Retriever Society of America; breeding, training, exhibiting and judging these much-loved dogs, and forming friendships with other flatcoat owners were her delight. She was an accomplished seamstress, weaver, and knitter. She enjoyed gardening and landscaping and watching wildlife.

She was preceded in death by her husband, Randall Clark Irving (d. 2007); and her parents.

She is survived by her brother, Chris (Mary) Engen, of Minneapolis; her stepson, Michael (Karin) Irving, of Bloomington, Illinois; niece, Sara Engen, of Hugo; nephew, Paul Engen of Minneapolis; her close friend, Karen Booth; many cousins and other family members; and many friends.

A visitation and celebration of Paddy's life, with a lunch, are planned for August 25, 2025, beginning at 10 AM at the Bradshaw Celebration of Life Center, 4600 Greenhaven Drive, White Bear, Minnesota.

Burial at Fort Snelling National Cemetery will be at a later date.

If you wish to honor Paddy with a memorial donation, some suggestions are: ASPCA, Flat-Coated Retriever Foundation, Parkinson's Association Minnesota, and local food shelves.