Elaine Barton

Even as she was known to us (her grandnieces) as "Big E", she chose a second moniker, equally fitting: "The Spoiler." Her house was always prepped with animal crackers-- the kind that came in their own individual red boxes on a string. She used to tell us that the one with the most monkeys was the most mischievous (and, shocker, she often won this contest). I also remember when we would play Aristocrats, and put on our snobbiest airs as we walked around the house in her clothes and costume...

I had the pleasure of working with her at the Central Record. Miss her dry humor

When I think of Elaine, I see her bounding into the Courier-Post newsroom, always with a mischievous smile and story to pitch. She brought great passion to everything she did and the world will be less-than without her.

I met Elaine on my first day at the Courier Post. I walked into the city room wearing a dress identical to the one she was wearing. We became friends and shared many adventures. I remember her excitement when during the Adamucci trial she got the scoop on a late Friday afternoon when the lead reporter skipped out for a hunting trip. Another time she was frustrated by being sidelined during the Johnson-Kosygin summit conference in Glassboro because she was pregnant. She was a born...

Big E spread her love wide and far. Everyone who ever met her found a friend who would truly listen. She was riotously funny - one of the few people who could reliably get a belly laugh out of me. She was enviably intellectually curious and there was never a problem that she could not help a friend or family member solve. Most of all, she was dedicated to her family - as a mother, aunt, grandmother, sister and daughter. She made sure her own mother, Ruth, was cared for in every way until her...

Big E! Was very special to me... my senior year in high school my mother moved to Florida and I wanted to stay up here and finish school... Big E. Gladly took me in! She was a great Aunt and we would spend many hours talking about world events.... in the last few years even though we differed politically she was always a good sport about my teasing....Big E. was always someone I could talk to.... Ill miss that... Ill miss her!

Elaine, my friend and colleague at both the Courier-Post and The Central Record, was a dogged reporter and a facile writer, but Elaine's sparkling wit and her boundless sense of humor shone brightest for me and my wife, Carol. Carol and Elaine shared dozens of books over the years, all of them about murder and mayhem. Elaine called them 'kill books." Tears for her now but wonderful memories of the laughter we shared.

Thank you EJ for all of the laughs and smiles. You have always had a special place in our hearts.
Memories are a little unbelievable, but they are there, never to be forgotten.
Jody & Bob Davidson, Merchantville class of 1960!