Eleanor Mary Argonis

Eleanor Mary Argonis was born in Washington, DC, in 1921. She was an only child. Her parents were Rachel Colaizzi and Anthony Paravati, who were both born in Italy and moved to Washington, DC. Eleanor lived next to the Capitol grounds, where she picked dandelions every spring when a child. She also loved horseback riding in Rock Creek Park. Her mother died young of a heart attack in 1939, and Eleanor became very close and devoted to her father. She would occasionally take drives to the country with her father and Arthur Godfrey (she drove).

Eleanor became an interior designer in her late teens, and then took a job with the War Department in 1940. When war broke out in 1941, she was moved to the new Pentagon building where she served as a civilian for the duration of the war. She was in charge of Ordnance Acquisition/Disposition: she answered the phone: “Bombs, bursters, boosters, blasting caps, dynamite…etc.”

Shortly after the war she married Joseph J. Argonis. They moved to the new suburbs in the middle of the 1950s. She worked with her husband running a valet business which her father started in 1936. For the next two decades she turned her attention to raising her son, Anthony Argonis (also an only child), who was born in 1957. She managed to remain a businesswoman throughout, especially after her husband died in 1982. She retired in 2001.

She was a devoted mother and wife, and a smart businesswoman. She was forever elegant, always in a dress or a suit and usually wearing pearl earrings and necklace. One of the highlights of her life which she shared with her son was seeing Elvis in concert two times. They had a blast. “The great times with her are too numerous to mention,” Anthony notes, “I will always love her and miss her. And I know she loved and cared for me very much. She was my best friend.”