Eleanor Wilson Abbott

Eleanor W. Abbott of Brooktondale, 93, passed away at Cayuga Medical Center on October 21, 2015 following a valiant battle with sudden-onset pneumonia. Born Eleanor Louise Wilson on August 14, 1922 in Chicago, Illinois, she was the second child of Ray S. and Isabel Miner Wilson.

She attended Cornell College in Iowa before transferring to the University of Chicago at the outbreak of World War II. As a "candy striper" at Billings Hospital, she met William Hugh Abbott, a strapping 17-year old freshman working his way through as an orderly. She married Bill in April 1944 and graduated from the University of Chicago in June the same year. While Bill served in France and Germany, Eleanor worked at Armour, Inc. At war's end, Bill returned to Chicago to complete his degree. The young couple took bicycling-camping vacations in Illinois, Wisconsin, and Michigan as time permitted. Bill's career took Eleanor and the growing family to Pennsylvania, New York, Indiana, Illinois, Connecticut, Michigan, and Brooktondale, New York; later to South Carolina, returning to Brooktondale in 1991.


With each move, she made acquiring library cards for her children as important as making the new house into a home for her family. Eleanor was active in AAUW, LWV, a PTA president, Cub Scout and Girl Scout leader, and was the scorekeeper for her son's baseball team. In 1959, the camping vacations began (with her youngest child still in cloth diapers). Packing the maps and field guides was as important as packing the tent for family explorations throughout the US and Canada for more than 15 years. She returned to paid employment in 1967 in Michigan and worked for Alumni Affairs at Cornell University from 1972 to 1980.

Eleanor volunteered with Friends of the Library in Ithaca and the Brooktondale Community Center, and was a member of the Tompkins County Quilters Guild. She was a docent at the Museum of York County during the South Carolina sojourn. She resumed her work with the "Friends" and the Guild when Bill formally retired and they returned to Brooktondale in 1991. Always an accomplished seamstress, she made clothes for her kids, curtains, draperies, upholstery, and knit sweaters for the family. She enjoyed playing bridge, gardened, loved to read, and worked the New York Times crossword puzzle daily with Bill. Her interests were wide and ever-expanding.
She might tell you that Chicago was her hometown, but her "heart" home was Brooktondale. Eleanor and Bill always enjoyed the wildlife that visited. In 1979, she discovered a new passion, quilts and quilting, with the Brooktondale Apple Festival's raffle quilt - a passion that was to last more than 30 years. While a member of the Guild, she taught quilting at BOCES in Ithaca and in her home, always inspiring others as she was inspired by them. She became known for her "bird" quilts, spurred by the avian visitors to the Brooktondale home. "Birds of the Cayuga Lake Basin" was featured in the first quilt show at Cornell University's Johnson Museum of Art. Her blue compass-rose quilt won the traditional category at the Schweinfurth Museum's "Quilts=Art=Quilts exhibit. Her production of charity quilts - for ABC and Foster Children programs - was prolific.


Eleanor Louise Wilson Abbott will be remembered by her children as a tall woman-although barely 5 feet in stature. She was smart, funny, ever-curious, inspiring and sassy - always and to the end. She loved her family and cherished her many friends. Eleanor was predeceased by her parents, her 3 beloved siblings, and her "one-and-only" - Bill. She is survived by daughter Lynn of Brooktondale; son William of Ann Arbor, Michigan; daughter Louise Abbott and son-in-law James Giordano of Ithaca; daughter Laurie Abbott and son-in-law Wayne VanVoorhies of Las Cruces, New Mexico; and grandson Skyler VanVoorhies of Durango, Colorado.

Her family would like to thank the Assisted Living staff at Longview, the caregivers at Oak Hill Manor, the ICCU staff at Cayuga Medical Center, her long-time physician Dr. Adam Law, and Dr. John Costello.
The family will receive friends on Saturday, December 12, 2015 from 2:00PM to 4:00PM, at Bangs Funeral Home. In lieu of flowers, the family suggests donations the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, or the charity of one's choice