Eleanor White Harmon passed away peacefully in her sleep at her daughter Janet's home on July 15, 2018 after a long decline due to Alzheimer's. In the last days she was accompanied by her daughters Susan and Janet, youngest son Patrick, and long-term care givers Mel and Jen.
Born Mary Eleanor White on June 12, 1922 to James and Anna White, Ellie, as she liked to be called, spent her childhood living on Jones Road, Weston, Massachusetts with her only sibling Anna "Tommy" White.
During her youth, she often visited her many Canadian relatives in Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island including her aunt on her mother's side, Helen Callahan née Taylor, whom Ellie considered more of a sister/cousin than an aunt given their similar ages. Ellie attended Weston High School and played field hockey. After graduation Ellie took undergraduate science classes and worked at the Godfrey-Elk-Cabot Chemical Research Company as a laboratory assistant. It was one day after work that she met her future husband, Daniel J. Harmon answering his question about "the nearest good place to eat" by bringing him home to her family's dinner table. Ellie and Daniel soon eloped, were married in Houston, honeymooned in New Orleans in 1946 and lived there a short time where she enjoyed the food and jazz music while Dan worked merchant marine jobs.
As the birth of their first son, Michael, approached, the couple returned to Massachusetts, eventually buying a home on West Plain Street in Cochituate and raising a family of six. Until her second son was born, she worked at the Cochituate branch of the Wayland library. Taking after her mother, Ellie was an excellent cook making most everything from scratch including jams, pickles, desserts, and bread for her growing family.
When her sons were young she served as den mother, and then as her children entered high school she served on the executive committee for the Wayland Athletics Boosters. She also served as hostess to many a starving wrestler from the numerous teams visiting the Wayland mats. In 1972 after most of her children left home, Ellie began a career in sales at the men's department of Jordan Marsh where she excelled given her knowledge of and appreciation for tasteful fashion. She retired in 1992 and remained at her home in Cochituate until 2010 when she moved to Suncook, New Hampshire to live with her daughter Janet to receive long-term care as her health declined.
During her long and full life, Ellie loved "real" food, cooking, gardening, jazz, shopping for clothing, camping, swimming at the beach regardless of temperature, theater, public television (especially Masterpiece Theater and the French Chef) and reading novels which she devoured at blinding speed.
She was predeceased by her mother, Anna, father, James, and husband Daniel J. Harmon. She is survived by her sister: Anna Spellissy and her husband George, aunt: Helen Callahan née Taylor and her late husband William, daughters: Susan Stasny and her husband Keith and Janet, sons: Michael and his wife Katherine Kariotis, Mark and his wife Janice (née McMahon), David and Patrick, granddaughters: Cathy Harmon, Elena Martinez, Anastasia and Ekaterina Stasny, grandsons: Daniel Harmon and his wife Bridget (née O'Mara), Daniel Martinez, and Russell Harmon and his wife Zara (née Foroughifar), and great grandson, Wren Harmon.
Ellie's family will receive family and friends on Friday, July 27, 2018 from 5:00 to 8:00 pm at the John C. Bryant Funeral Home, 56 Pemberton Road (off Rte. 30), Wayland.
Her funeral service will be held Saturday July 28, 2018 at 10:00 am at St. Zepherin's Church of the Good Shepherd Parish in Wayland, MA.
In lieu of flowers, contributions can be made in Ellie's name to the Alzheimer's Association of MassNH, 309 Waverly Oaks Rd, Waltham, MA 02452.