Eleanor Ann Connors

Eleanor Connors was born June 15, 1933 to John and Mary Connors in Girardville, Pennsylvania. She was the youngest of five sisters. John Connors was a coal miner. 

 Her oldest sister, Catherine (later Mallardi), moved to Washington, D.C. to work for the Navy Department as a secretary during World War II. The other sisters, Mary (later Marziani), Alice (later Washington) and Nancy (later Halbe), followed Catherine to the nation’s capital in the next several years. Finally, John, Mary and Eleanor joined the rest of the family in Washington, D.C., where Eleanor graduated high school. 

 After the Navy Department, Catherine worked at the Council for Economic Advisors at the White House. She facilitated a secretarial job for Eleanor at the White House. During the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, Eleanor worked for the science advisor’s office at the White House. This was the lead up to the moon landing and Eleanor was able to attend several launches. It was an exciting time. Eleanor worked for Dr. Jerome Wiesner who later left government to become President of the Massachusetts Institute for Technology. Dr. Wiesner asked Eleanor to come with him to MIT, but she felt that she could not leave her elderly parents. At this point, she and her parents lived on 37th Street, N.W., in a home the family purchased in 1960. She was a devoted daughter and lost her father in 1967 and her mother in 1977.

 During the Nixon and Ford administrations, Eleanor worked for Leonard Garment, who was White House Counsel. She went from seeing space capsules fall into the Pacific Ocean to seeing the greatest fall from power in U.S. history with President Nixon’s resignation. She was Secretary to the Cabinet in the later days of the Ford administration, being appointed by then Chief of Staff, and later Vice President, Dick Cheney. 

 In the Carter administration, Chief of Staff Hamilton Jordan reportedly asked outgoing Chief of Staff Dick Cheney who the best secretary in the White House was and Cheney recommended Eleanor. Eleanor’s desk was right outside the Oval Office for the four years of the Carter administration. She had a candy jar on her desk that Vice President Walter Mondale regularly raided. Her family has a lovely photo of President Carter presenting her with a birthday cake one year. 

 When Hamilton Jordan left the White House to run President Carter’s reelection campaign, he asked Eleanor to accompany him. She had always been a civil servant prior to this and had never been overtly political. However, she believed in President Carter as both a leader and as a human being of true integrity. When President Carter lost his bid for reelection, Eleanor chose not to return to the White House.

 Eleanor instead worked for Occidental Petroleum’s Washington office as a Special Assistant to Chairman Armand Hammer. Dr. Hammer had been appointed by President Ronald Reagan as Chairman of the President’s Cancer Panel. Eleanor traveled for the panel’s quarterly meetings and handled all of Dr. Hammer’s work related to the panel. She strongly believed in the Panel’s mission. 

 When she retired from Occidental, Eleanor became a regular volunteer at the Washington Home and Community Hospices Nursing home, which was near her home. She received multiple awards from the Washington Home for her dedication over the years, and a volunteer award was eventually named in her honor for all her service contributions.

 Eleanor was a voracious reader and, in retirement, walked to the Friendship Heights library daily. She never drove and enjoyed walking to the grocery store, etc., to keep fit. Eleanor was a dedicated, talented gardener and loved sharing her blooms. Her nephews (in childhood and some into adulthood) would sometimes help with her gardening projects. She grew lettuces and tomatoes, using those to make her favorite salads and BLT sandwiches. Eleanor was a passionate lover of opera, especially the performances of Pavarotti (whom she had the opportunity to meet during her time in the Carter Administration), a crossword puzzle aficionado, and a big fan of Washington DC's football team. Eleanor also enjoyed riding roller coasters, especially when visiting amusement parks with her sister Nancy's family in the 1970s/80s. She adored animals and had several cats in her lifetime. Every feline on 37th Street, N.W. frequented Eleanor's porch for pets and treats. Eleanor was beloved by all who met her, humans and animals alike.

 Eleanor was very close with all four of her sisters (they all talked on the phone with each other every day) and spent as much time as she could with them and their families. She never married nor had children of her own, but she was a loving aunt to her 2 nieces and 7 nephews, and later to their children and grandchildren. She spent most of her holidays with her niece Diane Bettge Norton’s family, never forgetting to bring the family dog a bone on every visit. 

Sadly, she had a catastrophic fall in her home in January of 2018, from which she never fully recovered. Since then, she had been a resident at Arbor Terrace Senior Living in Lanham, Maryland, and passed away peacefully on October 12. She is survived by her nieces Mary Halbe and Diane Bettge Norton (Bill); Diane’s children Thomas (Julia), Paige and Connor Bettge; Diane's granddaughter Winnie Bettge; her nephews John Carl Marziani (Christine), Bernard Nicholas Marziani and Andrew Marziani (Jennifer); Andrew’s children Meagan Marziani Jeffery (Michael) and AJ Marziani (Cassie); Andrew's grandchildren Lillian, Emily, and Angelina Jeffery; Johnny Washington (Melissa) and Billy Washington; Billy’s children Brendon and Lily Washington; her great-nephew Tom Washington; and cousins Jeannette Cleary and Maryann Cleary McLaughlin (Bill). Eleanor was a smart, kind, and amazing woman, and will be sorely missed by all.

 In lieu of sending flowers, the family would love for you to plant some with your family in loving remembrance of Aunt Eleanor.

The family invites you to a repast immediately following the funeral mass downstairs in St. Ann Church hall.