Eleanor Belle Brewer November 12, 1921 – February 24, 2019 Share this obituary View/Sign Guest Book| Send Private Condolences| Send Sympathy Card Eleanor Belle Smith Brewer – November 14, 1921 – February 24, 2019 World War II Navy veteran and beloved mother, grandmother and great-grandmother, Eleanor “Ellie” Belle (Smith) Brewer passed away on Sunday, February 24, 2019, after a long battle with respiratory illness. Born in Bradford, Massachusetts, she was the only child of Daniel Currier Smith, a well-to-do industrialist, and Beulah Esther (Brown) Smith, a homemaker and socialite. Ellie’s childhood was one of privilege, with much of her free time spent onboard her father’s 65-foot yacht, the Eleanor Belle.
All of that changed dramatically when, at the tender age of 13, her parents divorced, and she and her mother were forced to move from their spacious home and forego their affluent lifestyle. After attending Northfield Seminary, she earned her cosmetologist’s license and practiced until the outbreak of World War II, when she noticed that most of her friends were enlisting in the armed services. Never one to be left behind, she answered her country’s call to duty by enlisting in the United States Navy.
She completed her basic training in New York and upon completion was kept at Hunter College in Manhattan, for shore patrol. She was then transferred to Norman, Oklahoma, where she was trained in aviation mechanic maintenance, subsequently becoming an aviation machinist’s mate at Alameda Naval Air Station in Alameda, California. Toward the end of the war she met, and fell in love with, Chief Petty Officer Cecil Olen Brewer.
Following their discharge at the end of the war, they were married in Oakland, California. As she humorously recalled, “I was discharged on Friday, bought my wedding dress on Saturday and was married on Sunday! ” Soon after they moved to Southern California, where they purchased their first home in Manhattan Beach and eventually started a family, in order of appearance: Marilou Brewer, James Allen Brewer and Nancy “Kali” Patrice Brewer, all of whom survive her.
First and foremost, Ellie identified as a mother, a role she relished and in which she excelled. An uber-talented singer and tap dancer, she abandoned her hopes of a show biz career due to stage fright, but she supported and encouraged her children’s love of, and participation in, the performing arts, attending and celebrating their performances right up to the end of her life. Ellie’s life was nothing if not eventful, and being the wife of an insurance exec, with each of his promotions, she found herself moving, lock, stock and barrel, 7 times within the space of five years!
As her son Jim noted, “I’d gone to 18 schools by the time I graduated from high school”. Once she and Cecil were empty nesters, they pulled-up stakes one last time and moved to Tempe, Arizona, where they thought they would spend their golden years. But such was not to be; after 36 years of marriage, Ellie and Cecil went their separate ways, with Cece heading to Georgia and Ellie staying in Tempe.
Ellie had become good friends with fellow Meadows residents, Frank and Jeanne Crandall, and when Jeanne passed away, she maintained her friendship with Frank, a friendship that would eventually blossom into love. Ellie and Frank travelled the world together for over 20 years, until his death in 2002. Ellie will be remembered for many things, among them: her kindness; her compassion; and her ironclad sense of propriety, a sense which was frequently at odds with her sharp, often bawdy, wit.
She could comfort and soothe you one minute and then stop you dead in your tracks with a well-placed look or remark the next, sending the entire room, including you, into paroxysms of laughter. Mostly she’ll be remembered as a generous and beloved matriarch, one who endured a difficult, often joyous, rarely dull life, a life in which she gave much more than she got and was happy to do so. Her loss will be deeply felt by those whose lives she touched and in whose hearts she’ll always remain.
She is survived by her three children: Marilou Brewer, James Allen Brewer, and Nancy “Kali” Patrice Brewer, her grandchildren: Morgan Thoar Brewer, Cynde Patrice Allen and Jason Wayne Allen, and her great-grandchildren, Benzi Kaiah Sephira Allen Griffith and Jadon Lawrence Allen. In lieu of flowers, Ellie requested that donations be made in her name to Veterans First LTD, an organization providing assistance and services to homeless female veterans, located at 8433 N. Black Canyon Highway, Suite 100, Phoenix, AZ 85021. Ph: 602-487-7022 veteransfirstltd.org/ Her memorial service will be held on Friday, March 15th, at 11:00 am, at the Tempe Mortuary.
SERVICES Memorial Service Friday, March 15, 2019 11:00 AM Tempe Mortuary 405 E Southern Ave.
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