Eleanor Schulte

Eleanor Patricia Schulte, who was born with a hole in her heart, survived one of the first open-heart surgeries in American history, and went on to have six children,15 grandchildren, and one great-grandchild – for whom she collectively baked at least one million cinnamon rolls, lemon bars, peanut butter bars, cakes, and chocolate chip cookies – died on February 19th in Davie, Florida of natural causes. She was 91 years old.

Her final moments were spent peacefully in her bed in the early morning, with her two daughters holding her hands – for what they called their “final girls’ trip together.”

It was a journey that began on January 6,1934, when she was the fifth of six children born to John and Esther Murray of St. Paul, Minnesota. Her father was a railroad worker and then city employee who turned the lessons he learned reading organic gardening magazines into a prize-winning bounty that she remembered in detail until her final years. Her mother was an office clerk and talented cook who taught her daughter to make delicious meals from scratch, using any and every ingredient found in her kitchen without letting a single morsel go to waste.

Born with a four-centimeter tear in her heart that greatly enlarged her atrium and caused her to feel continually winded and weak, she spent her grade school years being pulled through her neighborhood and her school in a small red wagon. While she made friends easily and was a popular teenager, her mother often insisted that she take her little brother, Raymond, along wherever she went, despite being 10 years her junior, to be sure someone was with her if her heart gave out.

She made it through high school, and a few years after graduation, was in a girlfriend’s wedding when she was introduced to Jim Schulte, a friend of the groom who was one of the smartest, funniest, and best-looking guys she had ever met. Two weeks after her 21st birthday, they got married and talked about starting a family, but doctors weren’t sure whether her heart was strong enough to have children.

In November of 1955, she made the brave decision to become one of the first Americans to undergo open-heart surgery. Just nine months before, doctors at the Mayo Clinic had successfully performed the very first open-heart surgery in history, on a 5-year-old girl who also was born with a hole in her heart.

On November 15, 1955, doctors at the University of Minnesota Hospital spent 2 ½ hours slowing her heart by lowering her body temperature to 89 – and eventually 80 – degrees. After reaching her heart, clamps were applied to stop the flow of blood to her pulmonary artery and aorta, and the right atrium was opened to evacuate all remaining blood. A repair stitch of silk thread was then used to close the defect, a reinforcing stitch was placed at its center, and after three minutes and 45 seconds, blood flow was restored.

The surgery was successful. During the first week of January, when she turned 22, doctors told her it was safe to start a family. Almost exactly nine months later, on the very day Jim started a new job as a baggage handler for Northwest Airlines (he got the afternoon off), she gave birth to her first child, a son.

Four more children, three boys and a girl, were born over the next decade. After a decade unloading planes in the Minnesota cold, Jim heard about a position in Florida, and in 1967, moved the family to Miami. A sixth child was born a few years later, and like her mother before her, Eleanor became expert at using every ingredient in her kitchen to make meals go further, but not to feed just eight mouths. At almost every dinner, there was at least one or two of their children’s friends at the table, too, and none were ever turned away. It was chaos, but of the best kind.

She loved her life in Miami, where her sisters Lorraine and Mary and their families also lived and the three families celebrated every birthday and holiday together. Between school events and holidays, there were bowling leagues, barbecues, and weekly games of cards—and always, more chaos of the best kind in their 1,200 square foot house. Every summer, Eleanor and Jim would pack up the station wagon and drive the kids back to Minnesota to visit more family and life-long friends they worked hard and successfully to stay in touch with. Eventually each of the boys graduated and got married, and then the girls graduated, too. As retirement approached, travel was planned. But then, Jim was diagnosed with cancer, fought it, and beat it, but then it came back. He was 61 years old when he died, on June 20,1990.

Eleanor was lost, but she was also never one to sit around, the ultimate doer and giver. That’s when the woman who once thought she couldn’t have children began her life’s greatest passion – her grandchildren. She decided to make it her job to be everywhere that they were. For the next two decades, she traveled from grandchild to grandchild, always with the same selfless routine: show up and make dinner (always that particular family's favorite – crumb chicken, mac and cheese, lasagna, pasta sauce, Karley bread), clean the house, finish the laundry, and do whatever needed to be done, without waiting to be asked and without ever complaining.

Eventually, she welcomed 15 grandchildren over a 23-year span (she wore a chain with 15 tiny grandchildren, each identified by their birthstone). Many of their fondest memories are of when grandma came to town, where she took them for walks, constantly read to them, played games with them, and managed to do the same magical thing for all of them: to make each believe they were her favorite, because she made each of them feel like they were the only child on earth. In fact, as they called or visited in her last weeks, they said the same thing: “Hi G’ma, it’s (their name), your favorite.” If someone were to point out that the last grandchild had also called themselves her favorite, the response was universal: “Grandma knows the truth, it’s me.” She made them all feel incredibly seen and heard. As one of her granddaughters says now, that was her superpower. She was also very proud of her children, but they were under no illusion – they knew that she loved the grandkids most of all.

For her last 30 years, she didn’t measure time in days or months, but in birthday and holiday cards sent (mostly Halloween and St. Patrick’s Day), school plays watched, blankies mended, diapers changed, dinners and sweet treats made, and sporting events attended. She loved to read (she worked in a bookstore after Jim died and read a book a week for years), she loved to dance (especially to country music), and she would tear up whenever she heard songs from the 1940s (like the Andrews sisters) on the radio. And, the woman who was once pulled around in a wagon loved to drive, with a lead foot that often left relatives far, far in her dust on the highway. She also loved to travel, with family vacations being her favorite, since they usually had the greatest concentration of grandchildren in one place.

She was the kind of grandmother who thought making cinnamon rolls with a five-year-old was fun and she made sure to pass on the secrets of every magical treat she baked – from those cinnamon rolls (make sure to let the dough rise long enough) to Chex mix (cook on the lowest temperature possible) to chocolate chip cookies (make sure the butter is room temperature) to lemon bars (sprinkle the powdered sugar after they cool). And she always made time at the end of the day to watch a baseball or football game while enjoying a Budweiser – preferably from the can.

Her mother used to say that “Eleanor will stay (at a party or event) until “the last dog is hung.” It was a phrase her family never looked up until the last few weeks of her life (when they learned it has a dubious past), but the sentiment was true: Eleanor was usually the last to leave because she was either hosting or helping the host clean up. She wasn’t the life of the party - she was the life force of the party.

She may have been born with a hole in her heart, but she filled that hole with enough love, family, friendship, and fun to last ten lifetimes. As much as her children and grandchildren miss her, the thought of her being reunited with Jim is enough to sustain them.

Eleanor is survived by her younger brother, Raymond (his wife Sonia); her son, Robert, (his wife Sandy), and his children Shawn, Karley (who, with her wife Megan, gave Eleanor her first great-grandchild, Sloan, in December of 2024) and Ryan; her son Ken, and his children, Evan, Hannah (her husband David) and Maia; her son Dan (his wife Pansy), and his children Kevin and Jack; her son Larry, and his children Jessica and Nick; her daughter, Beneva(her husband Paul), and their children Ellie, Anna, and Rosie; and her daughter Jeannine, and her children James and Derek.

The family is planning a celebration of life ceremony in St. Paul, Minnesota this summer, during the same week as the Minnesota State Fair (details forthcoming), to lay her to rest alongside her husband, Jim. In lieu of flowers, the family asks that you tell your spouse you love them, hug your child or grandchild every chance you get, be thankful for all the small things in life – and make a batch of homemade cinnamon rolls for someone you love. Just be sure to let the dough rise long enough.