"Mrs. Whitmore is the reason I read for a living. She told me, when I was nine and miserable about something I cannot now remember, that I should go and find a book about somebody whose problem was worse than mine. I did, and I never stopped."
A life · in brief
Eighty-four years of attention, kindness, and tomato plants.
Eleanor was born in Asheville, North Carolina, the third of four sisters, and she lived in the same county for all but twelve of her years. She trained as a school librarian at UNC Greensboro, married Robert Whitmore in the summer of 1965, and together they raised three children — Margaret, Daniel, and Sarah — in the same small house on Charlotte Street where Eleanor planted what would become a much-loved garden.
For thirty-one years, Eleanor read aloud to children at Asheville Central Elementary, where she ran the school library and a Tuesday-after-school book club that several generations of Asheville children remember with fierce affection. Long after she retired in 2004, students would still come to find her at the farmer's market on Saturdays, where she sold cut flowers and listened — really listened — to whoever sat down beside her.
She is survived by her three children, seven grandchildren, two great-grandchildren, her sister Margaret of Tryon, and a community of friends, neighbors, former students, and gardening companions who loved her exactly as she was.