Happy Birthday, Eleanor!

She received cards and calls from friends and family including some in San Francisco, Minnesota and Japan. The Ocracoke Needle and Thread Club (a.k.a. The Quilters), along with the Saturday Ladies’ Lunch crowd, treated her to a birthday lunch on Saturday afternoon. They arranged for Karmen Layton (a.k.a. Karm the Arm) to bake a cake – a tantalizing chocolate-toffee confection that tasted even better than it looked.

On Sunday afternoon, at the roast pork dinner in the Rec Hall, the Methodist Women presented Eleanor with – what luck! – another birthday cake, also amazingly delicious. (How do we know? Ruth Toth made it.) Eleanor declared that she had more celebrations for her birthday this year than ever before.

To say that Eleanor is in great shape for someone her age is an understatement. Indeed, many of the lunching ladies of fewer years (by decades) lamented that they don’t have her energy, stamina or quilting skills!

In 2010, while working on the Mullet Wrapper newsletter, I asked the OPS Museum volunteers to share a little about themselves, and to explain their connection to Ocracoke. This is what Eleanor wrote:

“My journey to Ocracoke was a long round-about trip starting from a farm in Minnesota, teaching in a rural one-room school, on to Minneapolis-St. Paul, San Francisco, Panama Canal Zone, and back to Minnesota where I worked at the Mayo Foundation in Rochester a short time. Wanderlust caught up with me again and I went to Honolulu where a lady friend was living. Within three days of my arrival, I was invited to a ship's party and there it was I met a Navy man, Willard J. Garrish. From where? Ocracoke, North Carolina!  His ship was en route to China but we kept in touch, married in San Diego, and lived near Annapolis, MD for twenty-five years or so. When "Jake" retired from Navy in 1975 we came to his island home.”

Ocracoke has been lucky to have her here all these years. Happy (Belated) Birthday to an island treasure!