Eleanor Marie Marttila, 91, of Doylestown, passed away peacefully on June 16, 2018.
Born to the late Stanley and Myrtle Diener in 1927, in Port Providence, PA, Eleanor graduated from Phoenixville High School in 1944. She married Gordon Eric Marttila in 1951, and they lived together near West Chester, PA and later in Lawrenceville, NJ.
Eleanor’s progeny comprises: three sons — Eric (Susan), Paul, and Kurt; seven grandchildren – Joshua, Zachary (Katie), Jessica, Andrew, Susannah, Teddy, and Elizabeth; and one great grandson, Westley. She was preceded in death by her husband, Gordon and only sibling, Harry Diener.
Eleanor will be remembered by family and friends alike as being loving, loyal, supportive, highly intelligent and incredibly funny.
Eleanor began her career in 1944 as a medical secretary at Valley Forge Army Hospital, where she met her future husband, Gordon. Other professions included legal secretary, medical transcriptionist and assistant in the Lawrenceville School’s Alumni & Development Office. After about 60 years of work, interrupted only by spending time raising her sons when they were young, Eleanor retired in 2011, at age 84.
She was passionate about doing all that she could for her family and beloved friends. She enjoyed watching men’s college basketball and Sunday afternoon bocce just outside her back porch, but the sporting events she loved most of all were baseball games in which her sons and grandsons competed. From Little League through college, she attended thousands of games. She was also a lifelong lover of animals, particularly cats, of which she had many.
Eleanor leaves behind the best possible legacy — that of a life lived to the fullest.
Relatives and friends are invited to her funeral service, 12 p.m., Wednesday, June 20 at Reed and Steinbach Funeral Home, 2335 Lower State Road, Doylestown where the family will receive guests from 11 a.m., until the time of the service. Interment will follow in Doylestown Cemetery.
In lieu of flowers, the family requests memorial contributions in Eleanor’s name be made to: St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, 501 St. Jude Place Memphis, TN 38105-1905
(https://www.stjude.org).