Sept. 11, 1921 – Feb. 12, 2012
Elinor Brady, 90, passed away peacefully on Feb. 12, 2012 at her foster home in Medford.
She was born in Lebanon, on Sept. 11, 1921, the fifth of five children, to Charles and Nora Cowitz. Her childhood was spent in the McDowell and Sweet Home areas, where she attended Pleasant Valley and Sweet Home schools, graduating from Sweet Home Union High School in 1940.
She met and married her life partner, Clifford Brady, in 1940 and gave birth to one son in 1942.
For a short time she followed her husband into the logging woods, becoming one of the few women ever to be employed as a whistle punk.
In the late 1940s through late ’50s she was employed as a school bus driver for the Foster School District. Many remember her driving a large suburban bus, chained up, pushing snow uphill, trying to reach the Walters and Moxley school kids on Whiskey Butte.
Having had their home displaced by the Foster Dam, she and Cliff moved with his work to Cottage Grove, where they lived until his death in 1979.
She moved back to the Foster area for many years, finally being forced by health to move to Junction City and then a Eugene assisted living facility.
A final move to a Medford foster home one year prior to her death was to be near her immediate family.
She was preceded in death by her parents, two sisters, two brothers and her husband of 39 years. She never remarried. She is survived by one son, Ron; one grandson, Sean; and two great- grandchildren, Tarren and Alden whom she adored.
A memorial graveside service will be held March 3 at Gilliland Cemetery near Sweet Home.
Musgrove Family Mortuary of Eugene will be arranging for her inurnment.