Eleanor Lucille Clapp Bowling died peacefully on March 20, 2008 at the age of 90 at Shipley Manor Nursing Home in Wilmington, Delaware. She had suffered from Alzheimer’s disease for the last ten years.
Eleanor was born at home on June 28, 1917 in Monroe, Connecticut to Wilson Alphonso Clapp and Myrtle Elona Scott Clapp. She was the last of eight Clapp children to pass away, three of which died in infancy, and two others who succumbed to polio as children. Eleanor’s mother Myrtle outlived her husband by 23 years; Wilson was a farmer and inventor who died during the Great Depression when Eleanor was an adolescent. Eleanor, affectionately called “Dody” by her family, spent the first 25 years of her life in her native New England. Family roots in Maine and Massachusetts stretch back to some of the first English immigrants to North America in the 1600’s, possibly including a passenger on the Mayflower. Eleanor greatly enjoyed researching family genealogy, which she passed on to her son Jim and granddaughter Kristin.
In her adult life, Eleanor entered the workforce as many young women did during World War II, working as a secretary for the DuPont Company in Bridgeport, Connecticut; Chicago, Illinois; and Hanford, Washington. She met her husband John Franklin Bowling at the Remington Arms division in Connecticut, and was married in Bridgeport on October 17, 1942. Her marriage would last 65 years. Eleanor left the workforce in 1944 to raise her first son Jim, followed by two more sons, John and Dave. Husband Jack’s work for DuPont as a chemical and nuclear engineer meant many moves for their family, from Connecticut to Illinois, Washington to North Carolina, and finally to Wilmington, Delaware, where they settled in 1966 and Jack eventually retired.
Eleanor and Jack raised their sons with a love for travel and the outdoors, taking many family vacations to New England or camping in national parks. After retirement, Jack and Dody could be found rambling in their Airstream trailer for months at a time. Eventually they rotated annually between their homestead in Wilmington, summers in a lakeside cabin in upstate New York, and a warm winter outpost in Mesa, Arizona. Son John’s work as a pilot for American Airlines and many travels with wife Rachel, son Dave and daughter-in-law Cindy’s work as long-haul truckers, son Jim and daughter-in-law Diane’s missionary work throughout the country (and many summer camping trips with his children and previous wife Sandy), and granddaughter Kristin’s work as a park ranger are certainly a legacy of the wanderlust they instilled in their extended family.
When at home, Eleanor co-founded Wilmington's Family Education Center and served as counselor there for many years. She was a long-time choir member at Westminster Presbyterian Church. She was an avid health food nut and certified foot reflexologist, and cooked decades of elaborate holiday meals for extended family gatherings. Croquet was always a fun summer pastime in the backyard—if you could shoot around the gum trees!
Eleanor’s direct descendents are her grandchildren Kristin and Jeffrey, and she became ill before getting to meet her great-grandchildren Nina and Lucas. However, we— those grandchildren— have built this website in hopes that there are many she met along the journey of her life that have stories to share about ‘Dody.’ We welcome your contributions in the comment section below, or if you have extended stories and/or photos to share, you may contact us directly at:
Kristin Bowling
2221 Orchard Ave.
Klamath Falls, OR 97601
541-281-7162
montananshelby@whale-mail.com
Hopefully this site will become a rich, living memorial to the life of Eleanor that her friends and family can return to for months to come. Since there will be no public memorial service, if you wish to honor Eleanor’s life in a financial way, donations may be made to the Alzheimer’s Association at 225 N. Michigan Ave., Fl. 17, Chicago, IL 60601, or online at http://www.alz.org/ to help find a cure for this devastating disease.
We thank you, and look forward to ‘meeting’ you soon in memory of our grandmother.
-Kristin and Jeffrey Bowling
