Ellen’s Eulogy from her memorial service held October 11, 2020

-Our mother was born Ellen Jane Coale on Feb. 15, 1923 by a midwife at her parent's home on the south side of Chicago. Her father was 37 and her mother was 35.

-Major events in 1923 included: the first baseball game in the U.S. at Yankee Stadium, women’s one-piece swimming suits began to be worn, first portable radio, explosion of recordings of African American jazz music including Louis Armstrong, insulin introduced for treatment of diabetes, presidents were Harding and Coolidge, and the Hollywood sign was inaugurated. 

-It was a period in history of dramatic social and political change. The women’s suffrage movement fought for women’s right to vote for the first time in 1920. Prohibition went from 1919 to 1933. This drove the liquor trade underground, people then simply went to nominally illegal speakeasies instead of ordinary bars–which were controlled by bootleggers, racketeers and other organized-crime figures such as Chicago gangster Al Capone, and the “Roaring Twenties” where young women known as “flappers” sported bobbed hair and short skirts drank alcohol and smoked. It was also a time where frozen food was invented by Birdseye, the first known dance marathon lasted 27 hours, and the distress Mayday Mayday Mayday was first used.

-Her father, George Matthew Coale, was born in Gasport, Alabama in 1885. George was one of nine children and his dad owned a hotel. George was in the lumber business and later moved to Chicago.

-Her mother was Hazel Law who was born in Ontario, Canada in 1887 and the family later moved to Chicago. Hazel’s parents started a company in Chicago in the book publishing business…The Robert O. Law Company.

-Hazel was first married to John Nellegar. She gave birth to two children from that marriage: Elizabeth who we knew as Aunt Sis and then John who we called Uncle Jack also known as Bing. 

-When that marriage ended, Hazel then married George M. Coale. They had two children: George Law Coale, born on Feb. 14, 1921, but he died within two years. Mom was born shortly after he died. 

-Mom’s father, George M. Coale adopted both Elizabeth & John, his stepchildren, who took his surname after marrying Hazel.

-The Coale family moved to Kenilworth across the street from her grandmother Law’s home. Her maternal grandmother lived to be over 100 years old.

-Mom went to Joseph Sears School in Kenilworth then attended the Roycemore School in Evanston.  She finished her senior year of high school at Ogontz in Pennsylvania. She complained of having a great fear of giving her senior year speech. After moving from Roycemore to Ogontz she thought she had avoided it only to find out that they too required it. She continued on to Finch Junior College in New York City for one year.  

-Mom met dad after being introduced by a friend, at Exmoor Country Club in Highland Park, Illinois. Dad used to come into the city while enrolled at the Hotchkiss School in Connecticut. She spoke of one of their dates out to hear Frank Sinatra. When they became engaged, he had just finished his first year at Princeton University where he was enlisted in the naval reserve at the age of 18 in December 1942. He was ordered to report to training for active service at Cornell University in New York the summer of 1943. 

-Mom and Dad were married on Dec. 21, 1943 at her home in Kenilworth. She broke from tradition of white and instead wore an ice blue satin wedding dress.  Her two bridesmaids wore red velvet. Dad was on a short leave during training and arrived the day of the wedding.   He was dressed in his navy uniform. His friends were all stationed out of town so there were no groomsmen. His father was his best man. They spent their honeymoon in New York City for a few days. 

-After they were married, Dad was then stationed in California for training as a radio technician at what was then the Del Monte Hotel. Dad called it the “best base in the states”. They were fortunate to find an apartment in Carmel, but they were uncertain as to his next assignment for training and where they would live. 

-When dad left for the war in the Pacific in the spring of 1944, mom moved home and was a nurse's aide at Evanston Hospital. She was also part of the Junior League of Evanston

-Mike, the first of mom’s four children, was born in February, 1945. Dad was then serving on the destroyer Dashiell in the South Pacific. That ship, amongst others, was in active battle with Kamikaze suicide planes and bombardment from the Japanese fleet. Mom was likely unaware of what was happening at the time but knew he might not survive the war. That took incredible strength as many women had to accept that fate during the war years. 

-When the war was over in 1945, they rented a house in Winnetka while their house was being built on Broadmeadow Lane also in Winnetka. Their second son, Steve was born the fall of 1947.

-They moved to Northfield, on Clover Lane in 1951 and then back to Winnetka in 1961.  While in Northfield David was born in 1951 and Diane in 1955. 

-While the early years in Northfield were great years for raising a family, mom’s family life was changed due to the sudden and unexpected death of her mother in 1952. Mom was only 29 years old. 

-Even though mom, dad and the kids really enjoyed life in Northfield, they really yearned for a return to Winnetka and having a house on Lake Michigan. In 1960, the house at 429 Sheridan Road came on the market.  Mom was adamant about her love for that house, so they made an offer on it. Dad did a lot of work on the budget and said they may be able to squeeze it in, but it would be tight.  They wanted that house so much that they turned down an offer for a gain of $10,000 - the equivalent of $80,000 today - the day after they bought it from the other couple who also wanted to buy the house.

-In the next few years at 429 they added a large pool that mom dreamed about since she loved to swim laps, a deck overlooking Lake Michigan, and a screen porch on the beach. She loved to plant daffodils and the driveway was lined with hundreds of bulbs. She also did beautiful needlepoint work that adorns chair seats, foot rests, pillows and wall hangings. This must have helped her relax with four kids running around. They loved to entertain family and friends and had great fun with on the lake with waterskiing, sailing and swimming. 

-In 1968, everyone in the family’s life changed because Dad had his first heart attack that fall at the age of 44. 

-In 1973, mom and dad moved into their Vero Beach Florida house they built at a new development called John’s Island. It had golf and tennis and was located across the street from the ocean. They visited there frequently and moved there permanently after dad retired from the H.M. Harper Company.

-The Sheridan Road house was sold in 1974 after it became too expensive to maintain the sea wall and property taxes were escalating each year based on appreciating market values. They moved to a smaller ranch house in Winnetka after Diane went off to college to continue having a home on the North Shore. 

-1977 was a year of tragedy and sadness that affected everyone for the rest of their lives. Dad’s second heart was fatal in November. He died during a paddle tennis match at Glen View Club at the early age of 53. They had been married 34 years.

-Mom then moved to an apartment overlooking the lake in Wilmette. She was an avid reader so took a job at a bookstore across the street. She was a great employee as she had read most everything that was new so could advise customers on what they might like. She worked practically for free as she used her paycheck to buy books so that was another reason the owner loved her!

-It was several years later that mom met and started dating Giff Foley. Giff lived in Winnetka, his wife had died several years earlier and he had six children.  Giff was thirteen years older than mom, but was very healthy, active and mentally astute almost to his last year. 

- Mom and Giff moved to Vero Beach Florida and were married in 1986. They lived first in a townhouse in John’s Island, then to a larger house with a lap pool in the Riomar area, then to a ground floor oceanfront condo just a few blocks away.

-Mom and Giff often swam in the ocean together where mom did ocean “laps” and Giff body surfed in the waves. Mom and Giff also played golf at Riomar Country Club. They body surfed and played golf into their 80s and 90’s respectively. Giff spent some of his free time analyzing investments. Mom played bridge with her friends in the neighborhood.

-One of the two fall hurricanes to hit Vero caused considerable damage to their oceanfront condominium so mom and Giff became nomads renting numerous places hoping the condominium would be fixed quickly. When it became clear that would not happen, they moved to a third floor two-bedroom unit in the Regency Adult Living Community in Vero Beach. Even though it was not ocean front, the Regency provided numerous benefits including a restaurant, movie theater, and swimming pool. They made many new friends there. 

-Mom and Giff had been married for twenty years when he died in 2006 at the age of 96. She was widowed for a second time, but once again showed her strength and energetic spirit by getting back to life with her friends, swimming, walking her dog, and staying healthy. In 2010, mom said goodbye to her close friends in Vero Beach, the ocean and warm weather and moved into her own two-bedroom unit on the grounds of the Presbyterian Home in Evanston Illinois. She needed to be closer to family and her old friends in this last chapter of her life. She brought with her, Charlie, her companion and last dog,

-In her later years there she had incredible live-in care-providers including her weekend crew of Kristine, Gina and Luz. Edwina and Tony joined in this past year to help where needed.  But her mainstay caregiver was Melinda who was Mom’s trusted companion for over eight years, 24 hours, 5 days a week. In the early years they had great fun going out to movies and dinner and watching numerous TV shows they liked in common. In the last years, her caregivers, and family were challenged on occasions by mom’s endless desire to watch JAG – the television series’ - on an 80 DVD set or Sidney Poitier movies. 

-David and his wife Elizabeth were a major part of mom’s life in her 10 years at the Presbyterian Home. In addition to visiting her, taking her out for their weekly dinners and making sure her numerous needs were addressed; David oversaw mom’s financial and medical affairs. Liz was practically on call for errands to the grocery store or clothes shopping over the years. Mom was not known for planning ahead so there was some urgency to these calls. They were always attentive to mom and her group of caregivers which made her later years very comfortable in spite of her increasing dementia. She was able to continue in her independent living arrangement, enjoy her patio garden and birds, and not move from her home of the last 10 years thanks to this dedicated group of family and caregivers. There aren’t enough words of gratitude for them. 

-Mom had incredible patience when it came to having numerous family pets.  While in Northfield, we had freshwater and saltwater fish, turtles, an alligator for just a couple of days, ducks, and cats. While living at the Sheridan Road house, we had Ralph the talking myna bird which developed numerous interesting noises and words and a short stint with a pet monkey as well as cats, dogs, various rodents and ducks, and parakeets. Also in residence were some random ghosts that we all had to admit, including Dad, where part of the house.

-But anyone who knew mom, knew she loved her dogs. She had two golden retrievers named Butterscotch and Dixie, who ate food cooked by mom, a welsh corgi named Sonny Boy, a labradoodle named Gus, a labrador retriever named Ginger that used to walk along side the pool on Sheridan Road as mom did her laps. Mom took Ginger to Florida and walked the beach with her. After Dad’s death, she got a big malemute named Sheba as her protector, then to her Florida years with a basset hound named Daisy, another yellow lab named Duke and a bichon frise named Charlie. Charlie was mom’s most cherished dog because it was her companion in her later years while in Florida and Illinois. Mom donated money to the ASPCA and other causes.

-Mom was a very social person. She loved to entertain in her house and go out to friends’ houses and many parties. She loved to dance. We recently ran across a home video made of a party at the Northfield house in the 1950s when mom and dad were in their 30s. The film showed how young they were and how they enjoyed being with each other and their friends. Mom circulated the room finding dance partners. Mom and Dad also enjoyed travel with friends and were fortunate to have the means to go to Europe, and trips to numerous Caribbean Islands with close friends and later with their children. With Giff, she also traveled with friends on his son Tom’s boat on the inland waterway of Florida. They enjoyed hosting their combined family of 9 kids at various times throughout the year in Vero Beach.

-Mom was also very active in her kids’ lives. She was loving, caring and involved yet not strict or overbearing. In addition to always being there for her kid’s various activities, she even served as a Den Mother for one or more of our Cub Scout Troops. After dad died, she hosted trips for each of her kids and their families to the islands and was an important member of the extended Harper family reunions in Wickenburg Arizona and Jackson, Wyoming as well as travel to numerous weddings for her kids and grandchildren into her 90s. One of her last favorite memories was dancing at Brandon’s wedding when she was 93 and didn’t think she could dance any more. She was in full party mode having so much fun! We all caught a glimpse of her younger spirit.