Eileen Polley Blumenthal

Eileen Polley Blumenthal, 95, passed away on October 21, 2024, in Ojai, California. She was born in Santa Barbara in 1929 to Rudoph and Frances (Holcomb) Polley and grew up on California's Central Coast. She was a standout student and was awarded a full scholarship to Pomona College. Wanting to experience the wider world, she took a leave after two years and joined a post-war reconstruction effort in Italy. Returning to the U.S. she enrolled at U.C. Berkeley, earned a degree in International Relations, and married fellow classmate W. Michael Blumenthal, a German Jewish refugee. Together they had three daughters, Ann, Jill and Jane, and lived in Princeton, NJ, Münster, Germany, Washington, DC, Geneva, Switzerland, and Ann Arbor, MI.
Much of Eileen's passion was focused on child development and early childhood education. Living in Geneva as a Foreign Service wife with three young children, she seized the opportunity to study child psychology under Jean Piaget at the University of Geneva. Back in the U.S. she joined the pioneering Head Start/Follow Through program in Newark, NJ, teaching kindergarten to children of migrant workers. She earned a Ph.D. in educational psychology, completing her dissertation on children's propaganda books in the Chinese Cultural Revolution. She worked on education, poverty, and family issues as a policy analyst and as a legislative assistant to Sen. Daniel P. Moynihan (NY) and to Rep. Sander Levin (MI).
At age 60, after her marriage ended, Eileen joined the Peace Corps and spent two years in Nepal helping build a school wing and a hands-on science program. She then went to a Romanian orphanage for children with AIDS with World Vision, training the staff in child development. Responding to a devastating hurricane in Honduras, she joined an Episcopal Church partnership effort to help rebuild a village and stayed for two years providing disaster relief. While there, she recruited other former Peace Corps volunteers and started a nonprofit ACT that funded scholarships for youth, furthering education in that small town for a decade. Later, inspired by her work with AIDS patients in Romania, she leveraged her friendship with two Kenyan doctors and expanded her nonprofit's work to support nurses' training and HIV testing in Meru, Kenya.
Eileen's many years of international service earned her the Lillian Carter Award, given every two years to a Peace Corps volunteer for exceptional service after age 50. She received the award from former President Jimmy Carter at the Carter Library in Atlanta before an audience of her many friends and family.
She was an avid follower of music and theater, a dedicated member of St. Mark's Episcopal Church in Washington, always ready to lend a hand for the next project. For years, her house in Washington was a landing place for returning Peace Corps volunteers whom she welcomed as housemates.
Eileen was happy to return to her California roots and enjoyed her last years close to the ocean, mountains and nature in Ojai, California near her family.
Above all, Eileen was a devoted grandmother. She took each of her grandchildren to inter-generational summer camp and built lasting memories for them, whether hiking with Nana on the Olympic Peninsula, performing drama in the Adirondacks, or camping and hot air ballooning in Utah. She never missed a birthday or a graduation. She delighted in visits from them and her great-grandchildren.
Eileen was an extraordinary woman and a shining example of living life to the fullest in pursuit of one's passions. She will be dearly missed by her family and friends. She was predeceased by her parents and sister, Joyce Naegle. She is survived by her daughters Ann (Alan) Vollmann, Jill (Chris) Borgeson and Jane (Joanne Haas) Blumenthal, eight grandchildren, seven great-grandchildren, and ex-husband W. Michael Blumenthal.
Memorial gathering in Ojai, CA on November 2, 2024.
In lieu of flowers, please consider a donation to the Peace Corps Fund.