Diane Eckert

Diane was born to the late Arthur Evan and Eleanor (Martin) Jones in Buffalo, NY on August 3, 1934. Diane’s younger brother, Arthur, was born three years later. Growing up, Diane’s family lived in the upstairs flat of the house owned by her grandmother Mary Martin, who lived downstairs with Diane’s Aunt Bess, Uncle Charles, and cousin Betty. Diane was surrounded by her mother’s family during the school year but then spent summers with her father’s family at their Beckley Beach cottage on the shores of Lake Erie, and in Hamilton, Ontario, where her father had grown up. Diane’s father was the Station Master of the Lackawanna Railroad station, the youngest person to serve as a Station Master in the country at that time, something for which she was immensely proud.

Diane attended Holy Spirit Grade School and won a full scholarship to Mount Saint Mary’s High School. Although Diane had already decided to become a teacher and was enrolled at Buffalo’s Teacher’s College (now Buffalo State University), Diane’s mother was so relieved that she didn’t join the convent when she turned 18, that she gave Diane the silverware that has been used for 70 years of special dinners. Diane never really wanted to become a nun, but somehow her mother thought she did! During college, she worked for the Georgian Bay Line, a Great Lakes Cruise Line. After graduation, she started her teaching career in the Kenmore School System.

Around this time, Diane was fixed up with her cousin Don’s wife’s brother, one Wilfrid (Bud) Eckert. The reason for this fix-up was that “they were both tall.” It turned out that they had much more in common than their height, and they dated prior to Bud’s two-year stint in the Army and picked up where they left off when he returned. They were married on October 3, 1959, at St. Paul’s in Kenmore. Soon after, a home was purchased on Westgate in Kenmore. While pregnant with her first child (Mary Beth, born in 1962), she was also providing full-time care for her mother who was battling cancer. Diane cared for her mother at home for over a year before her mother’s death and would later also care for her father in her home prior to his death. Two more children (Ann Marie in 1965 and James Arthur in 1966) completed the Eckert family. Diane stopped working for a time when her children were young, returning to teaching when Jim started first grade.

The family moved to Huntington Avenue in Buffalo in 1968. They enjoyed Church at St. Vincent de Paul where they met great friends who became life-long companions. The Eckerts, Slons (Bill, Kathie, Michael, Karen), Marilyn Pollutro, and Bill and Donna Steffan spent wonderful days together at the cottage at least three times a year, and often celebrated holidays and special events together. This group of friends became family to each other over the years.

Diane was a great mother. She was attentive to the ways that her children were different from each other and worked hard to parent them individually. She was also the type of mom who made sure that the school uniforms were ironed and ready for the next day, that homework was done, and that dinner was shared around the table each night. She was also the type of mom who wasn’t afraid to get under the blankets of the living room fort, frolic in the snow, and play in the sand. She was at the plays, ball games, and events of her children’s lives, regardless of their age. Diane and Bud created a warm home and anchored it in regular rituals – Church on Sunday, ice skating during the winter, and summers at the cottage.

When Diane returned to teaching in 1971, she chose to teach in Catholic schools, first at the Cathedral School on Delaware Avenue, then St. Paul’s in Kenmore, where she became the Assistant Principal, and finished her career at St. Joseph University Parish in Buffalo. She taught many different grades but loved teaching 6th grade the best. She said the students were still young enough to have fun but mature enough to tackle harder material. When she retired in 1999, after 30 years of teaching, she immediately started the process of becoming a docent at the Buffalo Zoo. She loved taking kids (and sometimes the adults too) on tours of the Zoo but especially loved being a part of the Zoomobile crew, taking the animals into classrooms around Western New York. She stopped her docent work only after her heart attack at age 80 made the work a little too difficult.

When the first grandchild Monica Marie Debus was born in 1993, Diane chose “Nana” as her grandmother name and eventually Bud became “Nampa.” Nana and Nampa welcomed three additional granddaughters into the world – Brianna Hope Debus (born and died on August 6, 1997), Eliza Jane Debus (born in Russia in 1999 and adopted in 2000), and Emily Grace Eckert in 2001. Diane loved each of her grandchildren (now all grown women) and loved to have her whole family gathered around the Thanksgiving table or at the cottage together. She helped with after-school care and parent escape weekends, went to concerts, skating competitions, and marching band practices, and tried to stay connected to her granddaughters in all the different stages of their lives.

Diane loved to read, and it was her escape from family life when the rest of the family was gathered around the card table. She started crocheting and made bedspreads for the many beds at the cottage and took up knitting later in life when the neighborhood woman all decided to learn together. She loved the theater, the Philharmonic, ice skating, and learning new things. One of her greatest loves was taking a walk with Bud. They always made a handsome couple as they strolled together down the beach or most often down the sidewalks of their neighborhood. Once Diane and Bud retired, they added travel to their lives in a way they had not previously, visiting their siblings around the country, going to any of the places that their children lived, and exploring the parts of the country they had never seen. Diane finally made it to Europe when she was 75, first exploring Germany, then two years later, Ireland, Amsterdam, and Scottland; both trips with Bud and their children Ann Marie and Jim. Last summer, Ann Marie and Diane returned to Europe to go on a Rhine River Cruise, that included time with Jim and her granddaughter Emily.

Diane spent every summer of her life at Beckley Beach (except for the Covid year when American’s weren’t allowed to cross the border). Originally built by Diane’s great uncle and passed through the generations, her parents took her up there when she was just an infant in 1934 and she spent a day up at the cottage ten days before she died. Diane spent time every summer as a child there with her Great Aunts Bess and Minnie, as well as her parents and brother. She continued to make the cottage a priority when she was a young adult and she and Bud took over the care of the cottage when her father was getting older and found it difficult. Upon her father’s death, Diane and Bud became the owners of the cottage and “The Eckerts” sign started hanging in front of what had been known as the Jones cottage. As a schoolteacher, Diane was up at the cottage with the children full-time for the two months of summer, with Bud joining for Wednesdays and the weekends. Later in their lives, Bud and Diane loved to spend most of the summer and into September at the beach. Diane and Bud’s love for Beckley Beach was so complete that they worked tirelessly together when Bud was the President of the Beckley Beach Cottagers Association to ensure that the cottagers could purchase the land on which all their cottages were built. This deal happened in 1990, ensuring that the Beckley Beach Community could continue for generations. Diane’s granddaughters are the fifth generation to spend time at the cottage, an important legacy to her.

Diane is remembered with love by her three devoted children, Mary Beth Debus, Ann Marie Eckert (Ellen Chase), and James Arthur Eckert, her three granddaughters, Monica (Carrie) Debus, Eliza Debus, and Emily Eckert, her two sisters-in-law, Bernadine Courteau and Joan Jones, and her many nieces, and nephews, and close friends. Diane was predeceased by her much-loved husband Bud, her brother Arthur, and her dear friends Bill Steffan, Marilyn Pollutro, and Bill Slon.

Diane’s family would like to express our endless gratitude to the family and friends who have shared their prayers and offered support throughout this journey. We are especially grateful to the nurses, social workers, and chaplains of Hospice who helped Diane and the family through the final 2 months of her life.

Friends and family are invited to attend her funeral services on Monday, August 4 at 10 a.m. at St. Joseph University Church, 3269 Main Street in Buffalo. Interment will be in Forest Lawn Cemetery, 1990 Main Street, Buffalo. Friends may pay their respects on her 91st birthday, Sunday, August 3 from 4-7 p.m., at Dengler, Roberts, Perna Funeral Home at 3070 Delaware Ave in Kenmore.

In her honor, memorial contributions may be made to St. Joseph University Parish (3269 Main Street, Buffalo, NY 14214), Hospice Buffalo, or the Buffalo Zoo. Fond memories and expressions of sympathy may be shared at www.DenglerRobertsPernaKenmore.com for the Eckert family.