Eileen S. Stanturf

Eileen S. Stanturf
Eileen's funeral service will be Tuesday, March 7th, 11 AM at the funeral home, 1411 Vintage Lane, (Between 390 & Long Pond Rd.). Private interment will be in the spring at Ithaca Calvary Cemetery. Those wishing may make contributions to a charity of choice in Eileen's memory.
Eileen Sullivan Stanturf, 71, passed away peacefully on 28 February 2023 from complications associated with frontotemporal dementia at Edna Tina Wilson Long-Term Care Facility in Rochester, New York. She is survived by her husband of 45 years, Dr. John Stanturf of Rochester; daughter Colleen Stanturf of Davis, CA; grandchildren, Randy Stanturf, Mankato, MN, grandmother "Nanny" to Julia Hwang, Eileen Hwang of Seoul, South Korea, & Stanturf Dwomoh of Brookings, SD; sisters Christine (Michael) Dropinski of Boulder, CO; Anita Sullivan of Lansing, NY; Francine (Robert Pollotta) Sullivan of Rochester, NY; brothers Marc (Donna) Sullivan of Raymond, NH; Matthew (Cherie) Sullivan of Lansing, NY; numerous nieces, nephews, and cousins. She is predeceased by her parents, Francis and Helen Sullivan and son Jeremy Stanturf.
Eileen attended elementary and junior high schools in Ithaca, NY and Lansing, NY high school after the family moved to the Lansing Gun Club. She is a graduate of Tompkins Cortland Community College, Dryden, NY, which provided her the opportunity to visit Russia at the beginning of Détente in the early 1970s. Throughout her life, she worked primarily in administrative jobs, including Department Secretary, Natural Resources, Cornell University in Ithaca where she earned the nickname "The Little General." It was at Cornell where she met and married John in 1977. Eileen also worked at Ithaca College and the University of Pittsburgh at Bradford. Eileen and John spent a year in Haifa, Israel at the Technion.
Eileen touched numerous lives in many ways through her volunteer activities. She tutored English in Haifa and taught English as a Second Language in Athens, GA. She chaired the Greenville, MS, Make a Difference Day Committee for several years. But her passion was mentoring women. She led the Bradford, PA chapter of Women's Aglow, and the Women's Ministry at Emmanuel Baptist Church in Greenville, MS. She started a Christian Women's Book Club in Athens and a nursing home ministry there.
Eileen was a loving wife, step-mother, and grandmother. A woman of great integrity and strong character, Eileen had a deep and abiding faith in Jesus Christ. She was a confidante and mentor to many young women and her best friend was her mother, Helen. Above all, she valued her family, immediate and extended. Although she thought of herself as a small-town girl, she made homes for her and John in Ithaca; Haifa, Israel, Warren, Bradford, and State College, PA; Savannah and Athens, GA; and Greenville, MS before retiring to Rochester in 2017. Despite her allergies, she mothered two cats (Shalom and Marble) and four Golden Retrievers (Snickers, Daisy, Denver, and Connemara). Eileen didn't really like to travel but besides moving around the country, she visited Finland and Russia; Mexico; Canada; South Korea; Germany; Austria; Denmark; Estonia; Ireland; and England, Scotland, and Wales. She was loved and will be remembered by many people around the world.