My dear friend Eleanor Owen died today. She was 101. Two years younger than my late grandfather, Eleanor was born as the 1918 pandemic was concluding, and she died as the COVID-19 pandemic comes to an end.
I met Eleanor in a memoir class at the University of Washington in 2008. She was tiny but lion of a woman who freaked me out the first time I met her. For the first week of class, I submitted a very intense piece about my brother's battle with mental illness. The ten page story was going to be workshopped by the entire class the following week. As I arrive for the second week of class, this little old lady who looked and sounded like she vacationed in Kennebunkport with the Bush family came up to me.
"Are you Lauren McGuire?"
No, I thought. No I am not. She was the very last person I wanted to talk to in the class about my schizophrenic brother and his tragic and chaotic life. Should I lie? Should I pretend I am someone else? I was terrified and wanted to escape. It took a tremendous amount of guts for me to write about my brother, and now this woman wants to talk to me about it. No. No no no no. No.
But I couldn't lie, no matter how much I wanted to.
"Yes," I said.
She smiled, and paused. "I am Eleanor Owen, founder of the National Alliance on Mental Health. Local, state and national."
That was not what I expected.
She kept talking but I don't remember anything else she said after that. It was like meeting someone and falling in love at first sight, except this wasn't romantic love. It was like finding an extra grandmother and fairy godmother rolled into one.
I later learned about Eleanor's bipolar father and schizophrenic son. She had other family members, too, with MI (mental illness), but Jody and her father had the most impact on her life. Eleanor was an eagle: strong and brave and courageous. I felt like a sparrow next to her, under her powerful wings. I felt protected and safe as I continued to tell the story of my brother. She took me in.
The after the class finished in June, and Eleanor and I would meet for lunch several times a year. She lived in a three story old house in the Roanoke Park neighborhood of Seattle. I would bring a loaf of Macrina rosemary bread and she would make lentil soup. Every time the soup was different and every time it was delicious. Everyday, she drank a small glass of wine with lunch, stopping right before the pandemic because of her age. Nothing fancy. She was a fan of Two Buck Chuck.
During lunch, I would talk about the drama in my life, and then we would talk writing. A week before the lunch, I would send her a draft of a chapter from my book, and she would me a chapter of hers. In 2017, we took a writing class together at North Seattle Community College. She was in her late nineties and still drove. She was pick me up on the way to class in her ancient Oldsmobile with the WAMI vanity license plate, sitting on a stack of pillows so she could see the road.
The last time I saw Eleaor was weeks before the pandemic. Before Eleanor became a full-time advocate for mental health, she was a drama teacher. I had scored season tickets to the University of Washington drama department's student presentations. We went to a few shows, but missed the rest of the season because of covid. She loved to give me advice about everything. Her last words to me were of thanks. She thanked me for sharing all of my problems with her. She was sincere. I thought I was an annoying Debbie Downer, complaining, but she saw it differently. She liked being involved. She liked that I confided in her. She liked that I listened to her advice and wisdom.
I knew Eleanor in the later years of her life when she was a writer. I read and re-read her memoir of growing up in an Italian family in New York during the Depression. Her once wealthy family lost much of their property, and moved to the family's summer home in upstate New York where the story starts. It is a beautiful tale of a mother, daughter, survival and forgiveness. It is the story of Eleanor's mother told from the eyes of a child. When I read her work, I compared Eleanor's mother to Atticus Finch and Eleanor to Scout.
I didn't see Eleanor during the pandemic, mainly because I would not have been able to live with myself if I was the one who gave her corona. I did talk to her a few times.
"If I get corona, it will be three weeks and then 'Bye-bye Eleanor,'" she said.
I have no idea what she died of or how. I texted Eleanor on her 101st birthday a few weeks ago, but no reply. I wonder if she was ill. Before that, she had never been sick a day in her life. As long as I knew her, she lived independently.
Today, I was reading her Wikipedia page (yes, she has one) and discovered her memoir was published last month. I can't wait to read the final version, to see how she decided to pull it together. What I had read over the years was a beautiful tale beautifully told. I hope is widely read and loved.
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