MOUNT VERNON — Treena Kerr, whose illness prompted her husband, Graham Kerr, to cancel appearing at the Dungeness Crab & Seafood Festival, has died.

Scott Nagel, executive director of the three-day festival that opens today, on Thursday confirmed her death.

According to Kerr’s website, www.grahamkerr.com, she died Sept. 17, a day after she told her family she was “going to have tea and eggs with Jesus.”

Graham Kerr, 81, the British television personality known as the “Galloping Gourmet” from his 1960s-’70s program of that name, married Treena in 1955.

She was 81 when she died.

In the mid-1980s, according to the website www.biography.com, she suffered a heart attack and stroke, which led Kerr to replace his cream- and butter-laced recipes with more health-conscious ingredients.

On his website, Kerr said, “I hope to be able to focus a good deal of my remaining life trying to understand how best to live beyond my own immediate self-interest.

“I do hope to do this in the company of others who feel, as Treena did, that this is a great need in our troubled world.”

The Kerrs made their home in Mount Vernon in Skagit County.

Kerr, who had been part of the crab festival for six years, has been replaced by Garrett Schack, executive chef of Vista 18 Restaurant in Victoria, at chefs’ demonstrations from 11:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and from 11:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday at The Gateway pavilion, Front and Lincoln streets.