Eleanor Roberts

Eleanor Jordan Caruthers Roberts died Friday, July 15, 2016 in Holland Hospital. She was born Friday, June 13, 1924 in Worthington, Ohio, the second child of Paul R. and Martha Shaw Caruthers. Her ancestors included veterans of the American Revolution and Civil War. Eleanor spent most of her childhood surrounded by seemingly countless aunts, uncles and cousins in Glenshaw, Pennsylvania, a town founded by her Scottish immigrant ancestors. She truly benefitted from being raised by her village. As a young girl, Eleanor loved family trips to a fishing camp at the headwaters of the Allegheny River, wading in the summer and ice skating in the winter on Glenshaw's Pine Creek, working with her father in his garden or woodworking shop and her collie, Jock. Frank K. Roberts, a mechanical engineer, and Eleanor were married in the Presbyterian Church on land adjacent to the ancestral home in Glenshaw on October 6, 1945. When Eleanor met Frank she was applying her business college education in a bank in Pittsburgh. After living briefly in Hastings-on-Hudson, New York, the young couple followed Frank's work to Sycamore, Illinois, where their first child, Charles, was born in 1948. In 1949 Frank took a new assignment in Muskegon, Michigan, where daughter Margaret was born on Valentine's Day in 1951. As their children grew, Eleanor worked at Daniels Gifts and Office Supplies, Krautheim's Jewelers, and the Muskegon Senior Employment Program. In Muskegon, Frank and Eleanor were equally active in church and civic affairs. Eleanor served as chair of the Benevolence Committee at the First Congregational Church. Due to her long service in its local and statewide campaigns she earned the right to represent the former 9th Congressional District as a delegate to the 1964 Republican Party convention in San Francisco, at which she was a committed supporter of favorite son presidential candidate Governor George Romney. In 1992 Frank and Eleanor moved to Freedom Village in Holland, Michigan. At Freedom Village, Eleanor interviewed residents and wrote profiles for the community newsletter. She took advantage of the full range of travel, art, and study programs offered in her new home and volunteered at Macatawa Cable as a camera and control panel operator for public service television programs, including coverage of the Tulip Festival Parade. After Frank's death in 2000 Eleanor shared a special friendship with George Claver whose beloved wife Dorothy had passed away several years before. George brightened Eleanor's life for six years before his death. Eleanor remained very active in her later years, recovering well from a fall and broken hip in her 90th year. In 2015 she moved to the assisted living wing of Freedom Village, where she continued to participate in community activities until three days before her death. Surviving Eleanor are her elder sister, Katherine Schultz of San Francisco, California, daughter Maggie VanHaften and her husband Daniel of Frankfort, son Charles and wife Lynn Klubek of Falls Church, Virginia and numerous nieces, nephews, and their families. Eleanor had an uncanny ability to be the first to find a four-leaf clover, spot satellites moving in the night sky, and cut a jacket pattern from an irregular Pendleton plaid so the collar, bodice, sleeves, and pockets patched perfectly in the finished product. She enjoyed writing, painting, and drawing though rarely sharing her creations with others. She loved picking violets on Mothers' Day, preparing family picnics and dancing with Frank at moonlight dances in the summer, shopping for office supplies and hardware, feeding the horses at the Michigan State University Equine Research Facility and her cats, Toby and Casey. A memorial service for Eleanor will be held Friday, July 22nd at 2:00 p.m. in the 6th floor auditorium at Freedom Village, 145 Columbia Avenue, Holland, MI 49423. At Eleanor's request, the family invites those attending to wear cheerful attire. In lieu of flowers, Eleanor's family suggests contributions to: American Legion Endowment Fund, P.O. Box 1055, Indianapolis, IN 46206 / www.legion.org/donate/endowment_fund [a 26 U.S.C Section 170(c) organization] or Holland Rescue Mission, 356 Fairbanks Avenue, Holland, MI 49423. The family is being served by Langeland-Sterenberg Funeral Home, 315 E. 16th St. Holland.

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Eleanor Roberts

June 13, 1924 - July 15, 2016