A Farewell in the Land of Oz

In celebration of the life of Eleanor Ruth Bigelow Zindler.
October 4, 1932 - July 8, 2024.

I've regularly included stories on these pages of the ladies I lunch with. We meet about once a month, enjoy a meal together, and catch up on the latest news and gossip. 

I'm sad to report that our number has dwindled by one. Our friend Eleanor had a rough year. She was in and out of hospitals, rehab, and assisted living. On July 8, she passed peacefully in her sleep at the age of 91.

The people I hang out with are all ladies who worked at Penn State, initially in the field of correspondence study, then distance education, then online learning. We were in the business of working with faculty to make Penn State courses available to people at a distance, including students in all 50 U.S. states and more than 40 countries.

This work, when I joined the department in the mid-1980s, involved creating printed study guides, which contained the course content and assignments. Students would work through the study guides individually and submit lessons that would be graded remotely by Penn State faculty.

The people I hang with are the course design folks. I was initially a work study student, then a wage/payroll employee, an assistant designer, a designer, an assistant director, and finally, a manager of access, in charge of the accessibility function. That's the role I was in when I retired in 2020.

Eleanor was one of our technical typists, and she was very good at what she did. She was extremely accurate, and a skilled editor herself. She came in early; she was usually the first one there when I arrived. She was always perfectly turned out: a nice dress, or top and skirt, a jacket, jewelry, hair done. After retirement, she even showed up for our lunch dates that way.

We started out in Mitchell Building, at the corner of Shortlidge and East Park Ave., which doesn't exist anymore. That building, loaded with asbestos, was torn down in May 2003; they trained sprays of water on it as they did the demolition, to keep the asbestos dust down.

From there, we ended up in Cato Park, out at the Minitab building's "garden level." Garden level, HA! There was no garden there! And it was when we were at Cato Park that Eleanor retired. 

We had an amazing graphic artist named Karl Leitzel, and some of us hatched a scheme to come up with a graphic that incorporated a bunch of us into the Wizard of Oz photo set you see above; one that we presented to Eleanor (along with a dramatic reading of a poem a few of us group-wrote) upon her retirement.

Here is our cast of characters, starting at the top left:
Eleanor - Scarecrow
Cindy - Cowardly Lion
Anita (me!) - Dorothy, she of the Ruby Slippers!
Gina - Tin Man

Eleanor - Scarecrow

Anita - Dorothy
Larry (our boss) - Toto (this one STILL cracks me up!)

bottom row:
Celia (now located in North Carolina) - Miss Gulch

Judy (my original boss) - Glinda the Good Witch

Larry - the Wizard

Eleanor's services occurred on this day. The visitation was from 10 to 11 and the funeral was from 11 to 11:45. I brought along copies of the image above, the poem we wrote her, and some other cherished photos, in folders for each of her sons, Alan and Craig.

When I gave them the folders at the end of the service, here are a few of the things I told them:
*that I was Eleanor's immediate supervisor for many of the years she worked for us.
*that Eleanor was a good, hard worker, and a beloved friend.
*that she had high attention to detail and loved knowing that students all around the world would benefit from the high-quality instructional materials she helped make.
*that I was in charge of helping to build and develop Eleanor's whimsy level. (What can I say? I was naturally born to whimsy, and my big sister Barb helped cultivate that in me.)
*that Eleanor was always kind and respectful toward me.
*that for several years she sent me little Kohl's gift cards on my birthday ($10 or $20); my husband called these "Zindler bucks," and I still have the lamp I bought one year with the money; we call it "the Zindler light."
*that we had lunch together for years, but that in recent years, Eleanor often couldn't make it, in spite of the fact that my husband and I (and others) offered to stop and pick her up.
*that there were members of our party (mostly Gina and Judy) who checked in with Eleanor regularly by phone, took her to doctor appointments, ran her to the hospital when needed; they were GOOD and loyal friends, and we all looked out for each other.

I also mentioned that there were people who loved Eleanor who couldn't be present on this day, for an assortment of reasons (including Covid, wrist surgery, and car trouble, if you want to know). And then I asked permission to take photos of the picture collages and the flowers at the services, so that those who could not attend might enjoy them on Facebook.

Consent was happily - nay, JOYOUSLY - given. (My husband says he thinks I'm developing a niche skill as a funeral photographer. So sue me. I hate to admit it but I've had A TON of experience in that area, these past few years.)

Heart. Brain. Courage. These are all things we sought . . . but maybe they were things we really had, all along. We just had to find them in each other, and remind ourselves that we were strong, and smart, and brave, as we walked the pathways of life, helping each other to become our best selves.

And so for now, with all of the power invested in me as Dorothy, with my sparkling ruby slippers (which I've seen first-hand at the Smithsonian!), let me click these heels together and get this sweet lady HOME. So farewell, for now, to my Scarecrow.

There's no place like Home.
Love, Dorothy.

Eleanor chose as this as the final song for her services, and I love it so I'm including it here: Chris Rice, with It Is Well With My Soul.

But I've also got another song for her, and that is this one: Israel Kamakawiwo'ole, with Somewhere Over the Rainbow/Beautiful World.

Somewhere over the rainbow
Skies are blue
And the dreams that we dare to dream
Really do come true


P.S. As far as that Zindler light goes, which I still own, I'm gonna let it shine! So there!