Eleanor de Reeder

Eleanor de Reeder passed away at her Southold home Friday, Dec. 21, 2018, at age 91.

Born in Bay Shore in 1927 to Rudolph Silha and Camille Anne Richter Silha, she was raised in East Islip, graduating from East Islip High School in 1943, after which she attended the State Teachers College at New Paltz. She married Edward L. de Reeder Jr. in 1946 and gave birth to son Edward L. (Ted) de Reeder III in 1947. The new family moved to Mattituck in 1947, living in Arthur and Lucille Penny’s attic apartment on the north side of Wickham Avenue between Mill Road and Elijah’s Lane. That same year, Eleanor and Ruth Virginia Haas, both new mothers, founded Mattituck’s first Brownie troop.

Edward’s 41-year career with the Long Island Lighting Company began in Riverhead in 1947. His advancement within the company moved the de Reeders to Glen Cove in 1951. They purchased a home in Glenwood Landing in 1954, where Ted and younger siblings John and Anne were raised.

From 1966 until 1982 Eleanor taught at, and later became director of, Temple Sinai Nursery School in Roslyn. In 1973 Edward and Eleanor built their current home in Southold, which served as the extended family’s base of operations for 45 years. They moved to their Southold home full-time after Edward’s retirement in 1988. For many years Eleanor was active in the Southold Presbyterian Church and her community’s homeowner’s association.

Edward died in 2009. Eleanor leaves behind her son Ted, his wife Annette and their son Alex; her son John, his wife Helene and their children Elizabeth and Chris; and her daughter Anne, her husband Mark and their son True. She also leaves behind her “other son John,” John Richard Haas of Cut-ch-ogue.

The immediate family held a private interment ceremony at Calverton National Cemetery. A memorial service will be held when the weather has become reliably hospitable.

DeFriest-Grattan Funeral Home assisted the family.

This is a paid notice.