Eleanore V. (Potempa) McCulloch

McCulloch, Eleanore V.

Eleanore was born March 5, 1922, and died March 9, 2018.  She was 96 years old.  Eleanore was born in Chicago, IL, the second of 6 children, 5 girls and at the end, a little boy.  Her father, Joseph, worked for Pioneer Paper Company.  Her mother, Louise, stayed at home raising the children.

The little boy, Norbert, was killed in a hit-and-run accident at age 6.  This had a profound effect on the family.  The mother, Louise, went into severe depression, such that she was unable to care for her children.  Eleanore and her older sister, Gertrude, were placed in an orphanage, and the other girls were placed with other families.  Eleanore and Gertrude were in the orphanage about a year, until Louise recovered enough to care for the children.  However, the two oldest girls provided much of the care for the younger ones as their mother recovered.

Eleanore worked as a secretary, just long enough to know that this was not for her.  She joined the Army and went into Nurses training, and was a second lieutenant in the Army, caring for soldiers injured in WWII. Eleanore met her husband-to-be, Robert, on a blind date at Ft. Lewis, WA.  Robert, also a lieutenant in the Army, had a friend who was dating a nurse, who was a friend of Eleanore’s.  Roberts’s friend asked his girlfriend if she knew someone so they could all go out together.  Eleanore later said it was “love at first sight”, at least for her.  She knew Robert was the man she was going to marry.  Robert was transferred to Fairbanks, Alaska, and they kept in touch by mail.  Eleanore knew what she wanted.  She left Washington and moved to Alaska.  Robert scrambled to help her find a place to live, and find a job.  They were married on September 16, 1950.  Their first child, Mary Sue, was born July 17th, 1951.

Eleanore had left the Army, but Robert made it his career, retiring after 29 years, including tours in the Korean War and the Vietnam War.  His career involved the family moving every 1-3 years: Alaska, Georgia, Kentucky, Colorado, California, Illinois, France, Pennsylvania, and finally Albuquerque, NM, where Robert retired.

The moves were challenging for Eleanore.  Each move entailed packing up everything they owned, cleaning up the house they were leaving (often required by military base regulations and subject to inspection), and moving to a brand new house, in a different state or even a different country, with 4 small children.  The first big move was to Orleans, France.  Robert had to move there first and secure housing for the family, and start his job.  Eleanore was left with 4 children, two of whom were still in diapers, to make the long trip to France.  On the airplane to France, the children were vomiting from air sickness, and Eleanore was dealing with it all.

Eleanore raised the family alone when Robert was fighting wars overseas, the first time in Korea, and then two different tours in Vietnam.  Eleanore was essentially a single parent, dealing with the children at difficult times of their lives, while knowing that her husband was in harm’s way on the other side of the planet.

Eleanore was an artist.  She took up painting as a teenager, but got more serious about her painting in France, where she took art classes and made frequent visits to Paris to see the art works in the Louvre.  She used oils, pastels, acrylics, charcoal, and eventually decided that she liked watercolors the best.  In Albuquerque, she continued art classes for over 30 years.  She often entered paintings in the shows at the State Fair, and often won prizes.  But mostly she gave away her paintings to friends and family, often giving paints away to people who simply said they liked them.  Her paintings are hanging on the walls of friends and family across the country.

Eleanore was a devout Catholic. She managed to find a Catholic Church for the family to go to Mass on Sundays, no matter where they were.  She worked at the Neumann Center at UNM once a week for many years, maintaining their flower garden, and growing tomatoes for the priests.

She had a “green thumb”, and her back yard was filled with roses of many varieties, as well as other types of flowers.  She had a small garden that produced tomatoes and vegetables well out of proportion to the size of the garden.  She typically only raises 2 tomato plants each season, but the plants would be 5-6 feet tall, and loaded with tomatoes.

Her husband, Robert, died at the early age of 64.  As many couples often do, Eleanore and Robert had discussions about who would die first, and would the survivor remarry.  They both agreed that Robert would be most likely to remarry, while Eleanore would be less likely.  As it turned out, Eleanore never remarried after Robert died.

Eleanore continued to have a good life for the next 20 years, visiting friends and family across the country, and remaining involved with her art group, and with the church.  Her oldest daughter, Mary Sue, was in Milwaukee with her family.  Youngest daughter, Kathleen, was in Grand Junction, Colorado, with her family.  Youngest son Patrick was in Irvine, California. The oldest son, David returned to Albuquerque after time in the Army, and still lives in Albuquerque.  David and Eleanore enjoyed a long term relationship, visiting each other’s homes and helping each other out for decades.

At age 88, Eleanore began experiencing early signs of dementia. It progressed rapidly, and she required full-time live-in care which was provided by her daughter Kathleen, and then by grand-daughter Kim (Kathleen’s daughter).  Eventually Kim let the rest of the family know that she was no longer able to care for Eleanore, even with the assistance of visiting nurses.  Eleanore was moved to a “memory care” nursing home at age 91.  She remained a resident there until her death.

Eleanore’s time in the nursing home was difficult.  At first she was angry at being in a nursing home, and insisted on going back to her own home.  She was unable to understand that she was in a nursing home because the family was no longer able to provide the care she required 24 hours a day at home.

In 2014, Patrick, the youngest son, left California and moved into Eleanore’s vacant home, close to the nursing home.  He visited Eleanore in the nursing home 3-4 times a week, sometimes more, and would spend hours with her each visit.  He helped Eleanore with meals, he found a blanket for her when she was cold, and he kept an eye out for her glasses when they went missing.  He took her for walks around the nursing home and in the gardens for exercise.  Patrick went with Eleanore to the emergency room after her falls.  In fact, Patrick spent a full day in the emergency room with Eleanore after her fall just a week before his own untimely death at age 59.  Patrick often commented that every time he left Eleanore, he told her he loved her and said goodbye as if it would be the very last time he’d ever see her again.  He fully expected Eleanore’s death to precede his own, but it didn’t happen that way.  Eleanore was never told of Patrick’s death.  Her dementia was fairly well progressed at that time.

In the last year, Eleanore’s health declined rapidly.  Her hearing was worse almost to the point of deafness. Her vision was extremely poor due to macular degeneration.  She was no longer able to walk with a walker, even with assistance, and required use of a wheel chair to get to meals.  She slept a lot, often 20 hours a day or more.  She had a swallowing disorder due to a large hiatal hernia, and her last pleasure, eating, became difficult for her as well.  She had lost the ability to speak, and was unable to feed herself anymore.

On the morning of her death, the nurses saw that she was spitting up old blood, suggesting a GI Bleed.  She was transported to the ER.  Her son, David, met with the physician, and decided to put her on “hospice care only”.  A consult was placed for hospice care, but Eleanore died before the hospice nurse even arrived to do an evaluation.  David was at her bedside, holding her hand, cleaning off the old blood that she was still spitting up, rubbing her back, and playing music on his guitar.  Her breathing slowed, and then stopped.  Eleanore had died at 12 noon on March 9, 2018, 5 days after her 96th birthday.

Eleanore left this life to rejoin her husband, Robert; son, Patrick; grandson, David, parents, Joseph and Louise Potempa; sisters, Gertrude, Dorothy and Bernadette, brother, Norbert, and son-in-law Bob.

She leaves behind daughter, Mary Sue Schum (Husband Timothy Schum; children Paul, Joy, Daniel, and Clare; grandchildren, Veronica, Olivia, Zion, Toren, Elena, Redmond, Adelaide, and Francine; daughter, Kathleen Martin (ex-husband Bob; children, Chris, Kim, and Carli), Don David McCulloch; (wife, Kathy Flynn, ex-wife Mary McCulloch; daughter, Carrie). She is also survived by her youngest sister, Joann Gallagher (husband Bob, children Kevin, Beth, Bob, Matt, Mike, Meaghan, Sally, and numerous grandchildren).

Services will be at held at FRENCH-Westside, 9300 Golf Course Road, on Tuesday, March 13, 2018 at 2:00 p.m.

FRENCH – Westside

9300 Golf Course Rd NW

505-897-0300