Obituary of Eleanor James

Eleanor R. (Bent) James, a retired Accountant passed away at the Woodbriar of Wilmington Nursing Care Facility on Saturday morning, September 5, 2009. She was 90 years old. She was the beloved wife of the late Clayton E. James, who passed away in October of 2000. She was the beloved daughter of the late Harold and Mary Ellen Bent. She was raised and educated in Somerville. She lived in Somerville and moved to Burlington with her family in 1973. Eleanor was employed as an Accountant at the University of Massachusetts, Boston until her retirement in 1980. Eleanor enjoyed traveling, reading, word number puzzles, her computer, and crafts. She made, donated, and sold her crafts at the Saint Malachy’s Christmas Fair for many years. She was a member of the Jolly Eight Club and a member of the Arlington and Burlington Senior Citizens. Eleanor was the loving mother of Clayton E. James, Jr. & his wife, Mary Ellen, of Nashua, NH, and David G. James of Wilmington. She was the beloved sister of Elizabeth Pontifex of Medford, Ralph Bent of Sacramento, CA, Robert Bent of Quincy, John Bent of Burlington, the late Russell Bent, Warren Campbell, Beverly Daly, Mary Bent, and Dorothy Griffin. She was the grandmother of Pamela Hooper, Clayton R. James, Michele Fish, Jennifer St. Pierre, and Kimberly DiMino and great grandmother of Michael, Alex, Julia, Ian, Sarah, Summer, Serena, Allyson, Samantha, and Gregory all of NH. She was also survived by many nieces, nephews, grand nieces and grand nephews. Funeral from the Edward V. Sullivan Funeral Home, 43 Winn St., BURLINGTON (exit 34 off Rt. 128, Woburn Side) on Wednesday, September 9 at 8 a.m. Followed by a Mass of Christian Burial in St. Malachy’s Church at 9 a.m. Visiting hours Tuesday 4-8 p.m. Interment in Pine Haven Cemetery, Burlington. Memorials in Eleanor’s name may be made to St. Malachy’s Church Memorial Fund, 99 Bedford St., Burlington, MA 01803 or Boston Catholic Television, 55 Chapel St., Newtonville, MA 02460-9109. For directions, obituary, & online guest book see www.sullivanfuneralhome.net or www.saint-malachy.org In Memory of Eleanor James by Charlie Griffin Aunt Eleanor was so much more than just an Aunt to my family and me. In many ways she was a wonderful extension of my mother with so many great qualities that I truly admired and respected. El was always very generous with her compliments. Whenever I would call her to see how she was doing, she would give me a update, tell me she was doing fine and there was nothing to worry about, and then quickly change the subject to ask how everyone in my family was doing. She would then go on to remind me how smart my kids are, how lucky I was to be married to such a wonderful woman and how proud she was of anything I was doing, regardless of how insignificant I might have thought it was. I always hung up the phone, glad that I called her. Everyone knows that she just loved the family gatherings, no matter how big or small. I feel so fortunate to have spent almost every Easter, Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve with her since I was a kid. She always talked about how much she really enjoyed the 4th of July barbecues at Uncle Bob’s and more recently the Cousins’ Reunion I hosted at my house. Those are memories that most of us have and that will hopefully last forever. One thing that El and I shared was a common birthday, September 21st. We would always call each other on our special day and take turns signing Happy Birthday to each other. As I’m sure it comes as no surprise, the song sounded much better when she was singing it. She also had a great sense of humor and a little bit of a mean side, that hopefully many of you never saw. As the story goes, when I was much younger, my sister Debbie asked me how to spell Aunt Eleanor’s name on a birthday card. Proud of myself, I confidently proceeded to tell her ELEPHANT. As you can imagine my mother thought this was very funny (after of course she got over the embarrassment that at 14, her oldest son, me, was a terrible speller and maybe even an idiot). She then called El to share the story. Now you would think that El would laugh this off and turn the other cheek but no, my dear Aunt Eleanor went on to say that if I thought she was an Elephant than I was a Hippo. Touché! So that is how it began. For many Christmases’ and birthdays after that, El and I would exchange gifts of elephants and hippos of all shapes and sizes. She enjoyed this exchange so much that she even had women that worked with her on the lookout for the perfect hippo to add to my collection. So if you ever thought it strange that she had a few too many elephant figurines around her house, now you know why. I always found Aunt Eleanor to have an incredibly positive outlook on life. I can honestly say I have never heard her say anything negative or mean about anything or anyone (except, of course, for the Hippo incident!). The best example of this was at my brother Ken’s apartment one Christmas Eve. Ken is our family baker and makes outstanding homemade tollhouse cookies and what he and I like to call “fudge”. Now this is not your traditional creamy fudge. You can get that anywhere. What this delicious treat really is, is nothing more than hardened chocolate sugar. That year, the batch didn’t come out right for whatever reason, and was much, much sweeter than what we would consider normal. It was so sweet in fact, that even Ken and I couldn’t stand to take more than a single bite of it. While we were all sitting down together having desert, El said she wanted to try a piece of Ken’s fudge. We tried to warn her that it wasn’t very good buy she insisted. After sampling the fudge, she did her very best to say that is was pretty good, despite the look on her face to the contrary. It just wasn’t in her nature to let us know she didn’t like it as she would never want to hurt Ken’s feelings knowing that he made it from scratch. Only after repeatedly telling her how bad we all thought it was, did she finally admit that it was really, really awful. In closing, Aunt Eleanor would always take the time to send a card or write a note to let you know she was thinking of you. When my wife Laura’s grandmother passed away a few years ago, she sent Laura a wonderful note about her grandmother that she still cherishes today. I thought I would share with you the last sentence in El’s own words. “May it be a comfort to you, knowing that your Grandparents are reunited again and how happy they must be”. My hope is that Aunt Eleanor is now just as happy reunited again with Uncle Clayton, and all of her sisters and brothers who have passed on before her. Thank you for being such an important part of our lives. We all love you so much and miss you already.