Eleanor Reed Kassebaum

In Memory of
Eleanor R. Kassebaum

Eleanor Reed Kassebaum was born Mary Eleanor Reed to Gilbert Arthur Reed and Kathrina Clair James, October 28, 1930, the youngest of three girls. Arthur was a bricklayer and masonry contractor, and their family house on 42nd and Winthrop was built by Arthur’s own hands. Eleanor’s early school years were spent riding the trolley to Shortridge Jr. and Sr. High School with her sisters and neighborhood friends. She spent thanksgivings and summers at the Reed family farm in Henry Co. IN. Eleanor remembered many years of watching the fair going on across the street and later working in the fair’s accounting department as a summer job.

Arthur passed away while Eleanor was in early high school and her mother went to work to support the family. When it was Eleanor’s turn to leave the nest, she went to Indiana University in Bloomington, IN, to earn her Bachelor’s of Social Work. Upon graduation, she and several girl-friends took a cross-country trip to San Francisco, CA, where they shared a rental house. That is, until her high school friend Sue Kassebaum’s older brother stopped in to visit her on his way home to Indianapolis after being released from military service in the Army Corps of Civil Engineers after graduating from Purdue University. He missed her, but fate had a plan.

Eleanor followed him back to Indianapolis not too long after, and was introduced again to Skip (William J. Kassebaum) by her dear friend Sue Kassebaum. Skip invited Eleanor back to his parent’s home on the west-side off 34th street. He made dinner including homemade bread and made a lasting impression. They were married on March 12th, 1956 – her mother Kathrina’s birthday. They married on the grounds of Butler University in the same year as both of her older sisters, Lois and Ruth. They honeymooned in Florida via Skip’s MG sports car that he’d returned from the military with. It was a split household with one rooting for Old Purdue and the other for I.U. at the Oaken Bucket games.

Skip and Eleanor moved into an apartment in downtown Indianapolis, where they both worked – Eleanor at Red Cross and Skip at Hugh J. Baker as a Civil Engineer. His parents subdivided their lot on 34th street into three lots not too long after. One lot was given to Skip and Eleanor and the other to Sue and her husband Howard Westbrook, making it a close-knit family group on the property above old Eagle Creek surrounded by beautiful woods. Like Eleanor’s father, Skip built their family home on their lot, designing it himself and hiring many of the people he worked within the construction industry. Eleanor remembers shoveling a lot of pea gravel herself, moving bricks, and painting until the house was completed, adding her own muscle to the living space. Bricks for the tall fireplace were obtained from the demolition of an old carriage house at Red Cross.

She continued to work at Red Cross until she discovered, in a rather surprising fashion, that she was pregnant. Even more surprising, was that she was pregnant with twins! It was a mad rush to buy a second set of everything before they were born. William Reed and John Arthur were born on a very cold, snowy day in late January 1964. It was a few days before they were released, and the snow was almost worse on the day they could come home. Kathrina lived with the family briefly to help her care for the infant boys. When Eleanor returned to some semblance of work-life, she stayed on with Red Cross as a volunteer, eventually becoming the Chairman of Volunteers. Her volunteering continued on through her whole life. She volunteered as a HOSTS mentor at the local grade school for many years and volunteered with Sue with the West Group of the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra volunteer organization – serving in many roles – and making many rum cakes to sell at the annual Christmas fundraiser.

Eleanor also enjoyed spending time with her writing groups including the Fortnightly Literary Club, the West Side Indianapolis Writer’s chapter, and Women of a Certain Age, Telling one another Stories. She is well known for her beautiful stories and creative poems. No birthday or life event passed without a poem or a song from Eleanor to mark the event! Her fondest memories were of the family visits to their lakeside cabin on Sweetwater Lake in Brown County, also built by Skip. Other family vacations included trips to Europe to visit Ruth and her diplomat husband Charles Johnson and to South Bend, IN, to visit Lois and her chef and artist husband Jim Borden. The family was most important to Eleanor, with regular cards and calls to her nieces and nephews.
Post-retirement vacations included OASIS & Elderhostel trips, a few cruises, tours of Norway, Russia, Czechoslovakia, and other exotic places, and always visits with family as often as they could be included – most commonly to Washington DC and South Bend IN as she visited with her sisters and then their husbands after the sisters both passed away.

Eleanor passed away the day after Christmas, Skip’s Birthday, giving Skip perhaps the best birthday present he could have had – his wife back with him again after so many years. She loved and missed him terribly, at times finding it difficult to live in their home alone without him. She will be missed, but her tender care and graciousness will be remembered fondly by all those who she touched during her lifetime. She is survived by her sons, William R. and John A. (Jill Larsen), and grandchildren, William A., John S., Clara, Christa, Kathrina, and Joshua Kassebaum.

In memory of Eleanor memorial contributions may be made to the Indianapolis Symphony or the Fortnightly Club.

https://www.indianapolissymphony.org/support/donate or https://fortnightly.org/