Eleanor Ross Crary
May 2, 1928-Dec. 24, 2022
Portola Valley, California
Eleanor Ross Crary, resident of Portola Valley, passed away peacefully on Christmas Eve, at the age of 94, after a lengthy time of failing health.
Eleanor was born in San Francisco on May 2, 1928 to Ruth Carson and Charles J. (Jud) Crary. Her father, a Palo Alto banker, was famed for giving the young Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard their first loan after a brief meeting. A handshake sealed the deal. Her mother, Ruth, was the granddaughter of John D. Daly, well known Peninsula dairy owner and businessman. Eleanor was proud that after the 1906 Earthquake, he delivered milk to the children of San Francisco and opened his ranch to those left homeless. His ranch became Daly City.
The Crary family settled in Palo Alto, then a small college town of 13,000. Eleanor was the youngest of the five Crary children. The family lived in a white colonial house on Coleridge Street, just a block from Walter Hayes School, where Eleanor spent her elementary years before going to Palo Alto High School.
Her summers were spent at the redwood cabin in Woodside that her parents had built on Old Honda Road, back when it was still unpaved. Her childhood summers were a time of great joy and freedom, of riding her horse and swimming in nearby Searsville Lake each day, in lieu of a shower, when the springs ran dry. Those summer days cultivated a lifelong passion for nature, Redwoods, native plants and conservation.
Shortly after graduating from high school, Eleanor followed two of her older sisters, and brother to Europe to join Moral Re-Armament (MRA.) Her beautiful singing voice and musical talent were put to good use directing choruses and performing in musicals. She loved her years abroad, which included stays in Germany, Switzerland, England and Kashmir, just after the India and Pakistan partition. She relished the opportunity to meet and live with friends of diverse nationalities.
In the early 60’s, Eleanor returned to Palo Alto , taking a job at the Stanford bookstore. A colleague, noticing Eleanor’s intelligence and love of learning, urged her to go to college. So, in her late thirties, she enrolled at UC Berkeley completing a B.A in History in 1970 (Phi Beta Kappa) and her M.A in Library Science in 1971
She was quickly hired by the Alameda County Public Library system as a library administrator where she enjoyed working for many years until her retirement. There she met her lifelong companion, fellow librarian, Luanne Gilbert. They shared many interests including literature, music, and especially the natural world. Their love of travel took them up and down California, to the south of France, to Baja California and the Southwest – –to any place where wildflowers were in bloom. High in the Berkeley hills, they planted a beautiful sunny garden filled with Mediterranean and California native plants.
Eleanor shared her passion for native plants and her administrative skills by volunteering as a docent at the UC Botanical Garden for 17 years beginning in 1971. She maintained a strong interest in and supported many environmental and social causes. Eleanor loved her fifty years in Berkeley, especially the diversity, the prolific classical music, and the great restaurants.
In 2010, Eleanor moved to the Sequoias in Portola Valley where her sister Jean and husband Dr. Bill Clark, lived. She settled into the peaceful atmosphere of the Sequoias, just four miles from the redwood cabin of her youth.
Eleanor will be remembered by her family and friends for her keen intellect, enthusiasm and often wicked sense of humor.
She is survived by her nephew Bruce Clark and his wife Deborah Clark of Novato, CA; niece Carolyn Clark Clebsch and her husband Bill Clebsch of Boulder, CO; nephews John and Kent Nowell of London, UK; nine grand-nieces and nephews; and twelve great-grand nieces and nephews.
