Eleanor Rose Ide

Eleanor was born and raised in Flint, Michigan. In high school she played second violin in the Flint Symphony Orchestra while earning almost straight A's. She was also a member of the Civil Air Patrol and a counselor at Kiwanis Health Camp.

After high school she enrolled in the University of Michigan, majored in Sociology, and earned a B.A. degree, and membership in Phi Beta Kappa. On the day after graduation she married Robert Ide, who had been earning a B.S. degree in Electrical Engineering.

In their senior year, the University got its first computer, and both took programming classes. While Robert was earning his M.S. in computer design, she wrote programs to convert the University's Sociology department from desk top calculators to computer processing. Ten years later she learned that some of those programs were still being used, a remarkable lifetime for software.

Both were hired upon Robert's graduation by IBM - Eleanor in the research facility in Endicott, NY, and Robert in the space guidance center in nearby Owego, NY. Eleanor worked in pattern recognition software, Robert in support of the onboard guidance computer for the Saturn launch vehicle that sent the Apollo capsules to the Moon.

Later, both were hired by a computer service bureau in Raleigh, and developed programs for business data processing like payroll processing.

The service bureau industry faded away after IBM developed minicomputers, which were inexpensive enough that a business could own one and do its own data processing.Eleanor and Robert both got jobs with companies that had contracts to support the central data processing division of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Eleanor was active in her church,writing and directing plays.

She and Robert joined the Society for Creative Anachronism,an international club of people who did role playing to enact life in the Middle Ages,"Lost Colony Games," Which describes games that the early colonist may have played on shipboard and in their new-built settlements.

Both of them became active in the Second Life virtual world,role playing in several online environments there.

Eleanor's health declined slowly over the years,and she died peacefully. She is survived by her husband Robert, their daughter Kathleen, and her brother Harold.

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