Eleanore S. Olsen

Eleanore Susan Olsen – Passed away peacefully on January 19, 2020, at 101 years old. She lived a long and wonderful life.

Eleanore was born on May 31, 1918 in Ridgefield Park, NJ to Katherine and Xavier “Bill” Loeffler, and later grew up in Washington Township, NJ on her family’s farm and lake – Pine Lake. Eleanore was a natural born story teller and regaled her family for many years with stories of life on her grandparents farm, working at the Pine Lodge restaurant and the Pine Lake swimming place they owned and ran. She graduated from Lasell College in Boston.

Eleanore met the love of her life, Dr. Clinton O. Olsen, a dentist on Wall Street, at Polyclinic Hospital in NYC where they both were working. She accepted his proposal, after many others she told us, because he was such fun, and a red head to boot! The Olsens raised their family in Westwood, NJ. During those years, Eleanore started an antiques business. She loved antiques and the people in the business. Like her father, she was a wonderful artist taking lessons well into her later years. For the last 20 years of her life, Eleanore lived at Edgehill in Stamford, CT to be near her daughter and family.

She was a woman of great style, spunk, opinion, spirit, faith and strength. She always had a great line for any occasion. She was amazing in a crisis.

Her family got a kick out of her old fashioned ideas on things. She took peppermint schnappes with hot water for belly aches; she took a tiny bit of port to bed at night in case she woke up-one sip would put her back to sleep; being German, she loved her beer but never ordered it at Edgehill because a “lady never drinks beer”; her sight suffered in her later years but she watched over all of us with an eagle eye as to appropriate dress, hair do, manners, etc. and certainly commented if these weren’t up to her high standards. We will miss her.

Eleanore was predeceased by her husband, Dr. Clinton Olsen; her son, Dr. Kenneth Olsen; her grandson, Tucker Davis; and her sister, Ruth Anderson. She will be missed by so many of her family: her daughter, Marna Davis and Marna’s husband, Chuck Davis, and son, Tyler; her other grandsons –Cabot Olsen and Leif Olsen and his family; her nephews-Steven and Scott Anderson; her beloved Loeffler family in Munich, Germany; her beloved Olsen family both here and in Norway; and the entire Davis family in Vermont.

There will be a Celebration of her Life this spring. In lieu of flowers, contributions may be made in her memory to the Fibrolamellar Cancer Foundation (the foundation raising funds for research into the cancer that her grandson, Tucker, died from), 20 Horseneck Lane, Greenwich, CT 06830.