Edna Elenore Hovey

Edna Eleanor Hovey, 87 of Naples Florida, known to all as “Eddy”, passed away surrounded by family on Wednesday October 7, 2015 after a courageous battle with complications from Heart surgery. Born September 1, 1928, Eddy was the eighth child of David Frederick Wolf, Sr. and Eva Elisabet Daubert of Burch Run Michigan. She met and married William Gifford (Bill) Hovey and the adventures started. As a young bride she helped build her new family’s business “Hovey Cement” in Flint Michigan. Not one to sit in an office and answer the phone and take orders she was known to jump in and drive ready mix trucks or deliver cement blocks to the booming post war Flint Michigan. Fascinated by the business world she attended Dale Carnegie seminars and eventually became the first female instructor for Dale Carnegie. With that knowledge and her enthusiasm for business she went on to not only build a successfully construction company in Grand Blanc Michigan, “Hovey Homes”, but also write a cook book “Shark Seafood of the Future”, purchase a seat and trade on the newly formed Chicago Board of Trade (Option Exchange), all while raising a family of four children, Kathryn, Susan, Michael and Pete.

In a time where women stayed home to take care of the family, she wanted to be a true trail blazer, not only in business but also as an adventurer. She shared many adventures with her husband Bill traveling the world, fishing for sail fish in Cabo San Lucas, sword fish in the Florida Keys, Marlin on the Great Barrier Reef, and salmon in Alaska, not to mention hunting big game in Alaska.

After relocating to Naples Florida in the early 1980s, Eddy developed a new concept for outfitting homes for daily living which lead to her opening of Designer’s Packaging, later know as Designer’s Mart, a high end luxury design center, which she owned and operated in Naples Florida for the past thirty years.

Preceding her in death was her husband Bill Hovey, her parents David and Eva Wolf, and seven of her siblings, Amalia (Mollie), David, Jr., Henry Walter, Lydia Elizabeth, William Herbert, and Bertha (Beth), and by her beloved cat Max. Eddy is survived by and will be missed by her four children, Katie Gullickson (Grant Gullickson), Susan Hovey (Deb-Ann Thomson), Michael Hovey, and Pete Hovey (Brenda Hovey), her sister Elma Katherine, her grandchildren Ivy Gullickson, Glen Gullickson, Ellie Gullickson, and Amber Hovey and close family friends, Jeff LaVire, Bill Mercer and Rachel Yurko. The family would like to extend a special thanks to the staff at HealthPark Care and Rehabilitation Center in Ft. Myers, Florida.

A special thanks to Wendy Hayes of SWFL Geriatric Care Management for her love, support, and guidance to our Mother, Eddy Hovey, and to her family.

Services will be held at 11:00 a.m. on Wednesday October 14, 2015 at Grace Lutheran Church, 860 Banyan Blvd., Naples, Florida 34102, (239) 261-7421, with Pastor Keith A. Lingsch officiating. In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to the Grace Lutheran Church Memorial Garden Fund or to the American Diabetes Foundation.