Eleanor C. Thayer

Eleanor (Crandall) Thayer, 92, of Old Shannock Road, Shannock, died on March 8, 2012, at South County Hospital in Wakefield. She was the beloved wife of the late Silas Warren Thayer. She was born in Westerly on Nov. 25, 1919, the daughter of the late Frank H. and Alice (Arnold) Crandall. She was one of the last surviving teachers in Rhode Island to have taught in a one-room school. After graduating at age 16 from Westerly High School, where she helped write a play for the town’s tercentenary celebration, she took a year of post-graduate study before enrolling in what was then the R.I. College of Education. She graduated with a bachelor’s degree in 1941 and went to work as a teacher in the Town Hall school in Exeter. She also taught in Chepachet before moving to Charlestown Elementary School, where she taught first grade until her retirement in 1960. Several years ago, her memories of one-room school instruction were included in an oral history of Exeter, where she recalled working with out-dated textbooks and having to start a fire every morning in the school’s wood stove. She was a poet whose work was published in a 1946 collection, “While Enemies Conspire,” and in a number of poetry and consumer publications, including Yankee, The Christian Science Monitor, Cat Fancy and Prairie Wings. She continued to write until vision problems made it difficult, and she had a poem published in the garden magazine Birds and Blooms in 2010, when she was 90 years old. She also was an inveterate participant in sweepstakes and contests, and she won a number of jingle competitions over the years. Among the prizes she earned were wristwatches, cameras, a sewing machine and a washing machine. Until her blindness she also was a fan of crossword puzzles. In recent years, she satisfied her intellectual curiosity by “reading” audio books, which she consumed at the rate of four or five a week. After retiring from school teaching, she concentrated on raising her daughters and keeping the books for her husband’s sawmill business. She is survived by two daughters, Andrea A. Thayer of Westerly and Betty J. Cotter of Wakefield; a brother, Frank H. Crandall Jr. of West Palm Beach, Fla.; two sisters, Dorothy C. Bliss of Lynchburg, Va., and Ruth Greenhalgh of West Palm Beach; and three grandchildren, Perry, Colby and Mary Cotter. She was the sister of the late Charles Crandall and Marguerite Purnell and mother of the late Mary Jane Charland. Her funeral will be held from the Avery-Storti Funeral Home, 88 Columbia St., Wakefield, on Monday at 10 a.m. Burial will follow at Wood River Cemetery in Hope Valley. Visiting hours will take place on Sunday from 4 to 6 p.m. Memorial donations may be made to South County Hospital, 100 Kenyon Ave., Wakefield, RI 02880.