Eleanor Ely Louttit

Eleanor Ely Louttit

May 3, 1927 - April 9, 2024

Durham, North Carolina - Eleanor Kathleen Holmes (Ely) Louttit

Eleanor Louttit passed away peacefully in her sleep on April 9, 2024 after a brief illness. As she requested there be no service or memorial, let this stand as a short eulogy in written form, though to sum up in this space a life just shy of 97 years is no realistic task.

Eleanor was born on May 3, 1927 in Elizabeth, PA. She was the only child of James and Elizabeth Holmes. Her childhood included the Great Depression, and her teen years spanned World War II. She attended the University of Pittsburgh, where she met and married her first husband, Ralph Ely, a PhD candidate at Pitt at the time. Their 37-year marriage produced four sons, at which point we figure they gave up on having a daughter.

The family moved to Durham, NC in 1959. Eleanor spent the first many years there as a homemaker and mother, eventually taking a job at the local junior high school and adding school administration and teaching to her broadening resumé. After divorcing her first husband, she remarried in 1986 to a high school friend, James Louttit, and they remained so for 34 years, until Jim's passing in 2020. They enjoyed a quiet life in Durham mixed with extensive world traveling, prizing their annual trips to England and the Orkney Islands in Scotland. She also co-authored two travel guides for Fodor's Modern Guides.

Eleanor had a great love of all things English, especially its history. She could name you the entire royal lineage, most of Shakespeare and anything Winston Churchill had to say on the subject. She also had a love and deep talent for teaching. While she never pursued it professionally, her teaching and tutoring improved many lives. For those of us within that circle, she will be remembered for her, ahem, demand for detailed attention to grammar, and the beauty of the well-written sentence. She was a voracious reader, having amassed rooms of books (and actually reading every volume at least once!) over her long lifetime. She loved word puzzles, still working them only a few days before she passed. In later years, she rekindled an interest in cooking.

She gifted to her family a love of learning, of the written word, of frogs croaking in the spring and the smell of linens dried in the sun. Together with our father, she created the most magical Christmases imaginable, and forever instilled a sense of ritual and awe to all of the holidays. Many wondrous and delightful memories she created for her children, and perhaps there is no greater legacy than that.

Eleanor is survived by her children, Ralph (Randy) Ely III and his wife Jo of Smith Mountain Lake, VA, Chris Ely and his wife Cathy of Hillsborough, NC, Geoff Ely and his wife Nancy of Moore, SC and Linc Ely and his wife Jackie of Charlotte, NC, along with eleven grandchildren and twelve great grandchildren. She was predeceased by her husbands and a granddaughter (Erica Ely). She is the last of her generation of the Holmeses and Russells, and so marks the passage in history of a great clan of forebears.

We are so grateful to Duke Medical Center and especially Peak Resources Brookshire in Hillsborough for the gracious, caring attention given to Eleanor while she was in their care. Although no services are planned, we ask you to please consider directing any memorial donations to the Durham Rescue Mission or St. Jude Children's Research Hospital.