1949 Newport grad remembers hometown

Eloise Eckhardt leaves hospital, cemetery, museum, Sheriff ’s Office money when she passed

NEWPORT – Eloise Eckhardt, a woman who left more than $1 million total to four local groups when she died last year, treasured Newport, the town where she grew up.

“She really loved Newport,” her niece Karen Reilly said. “In her mind, she never left.”

Reilly said she remembers visiting her aunt and uncle, Eloise and Mac Eckhardt, in Corvalis, Oregon, where they moved not long after they were married in the 1950s.

“She was the sweetest aunt,” Reilly said.

She remembers her aunt had worked at a drugstore in Newport and went to the theater regularly to see movies.

“She took The Miner until a couple years ago,” Reilly said.

So when Eloise died last year at the age of 93, little by little organizations discovered she had remembered them in her will.

The Pend Oreille County Historical Society, the Pend Oreille County Sheriff’s Office, Newport Hospital & Health Services Foundation and Pend Oreille County Cemetery

Eloise Barry Eckhardt was a 1949 Newport High School graduate.

District No. 1, all started to hear they were beneficiaries of investments, life insurance policies and other financial instruments.

The cemetery got a sizeable amount, $516,511, according to Chris Demlow, the district superintendent.

“Karen sent us a letter and I made an appointment to go see her,” Demlow said. That’s when he found out the cemetery district was coming into some money. But he didn’t know how much. It took some time for Reilly, the executer of her aunt’s will, to work through the assets.

“As they found them, they’d let us know,” Demlow said.

He started to get forms about money from banks, investments and annuities that Eckhardt had left the cemetery district.

“It was a cumbersome process,” he said. Demlow would return the completed forms and wait. When he didn’t hear from them, he would contact them to see what happened. Some were denied because the name left in the will didn’t match the legal name of the Pend Oreille County Cemetery District No. 1.

“They didn’t let you know until you called,” he said.

After Demlow worked through the details, the money started coming in.

Eckhardt was buried in the Newport Cemetery, where her parents were buried. Her husband, Mac Eckhardt, who died in 2012, was buried in Oregon, where the couple lived most of their lives. They didn’t have any children, Reilly said.

Demlow said the district was very appreciative for the money.

“We got her a nice headstone,” he said.

Newport Hospital & Health Services Foundation received $394,722 from the estate.

“We are so grateful,” said Josh Johnson, marketing and foundation manager for NHHS.

The Sherriff’s Office was surprised when they heard it had been bequeathed $176,000.

“The money is in the sheriff’s donation reserve,” county financial officer Jill Shacklett said.

The board of the Pend Oreille County Historical Society didn’t want to disclose how much they received, said Sue Mauro.

“It was a nice size, I’ll tell you that,” Mauro said. “She was very generous.”

Mauro, who has a spreadsheet of Newport High School graduates that dates back to 1913, compiled a history of the Eckhardts. Both Eloise and her husband Mayard, “Mac,” were Newport High School graduates.

She first became aware of Eloise Eckhardt when she received a call from Reilly, who told her that her aunt had some things she wanted to go to the museum.

Mauro went to north Spokane and picked up some glass vases, vintage antique liquor bottles and some new DVDs that she thought could be sold in the museum’s gift shop. Mauro understood that Eloise was still alive and living in Oregon, but that Mac had died several years earlier, but wasn’t sure, so she started researching.

Looking through old high school yearbooks and other sources, she discovered that Eloise Rosella Barry was born in April 1931 to Osios F. Berry and Jennie Barry. Both her parents are buried at the Newport Cemetery.

Eloise graduated with 45 classmates in 1945. She was the senior class vice-president for one quarter and class secretary for three quarters.

“Eloise, as a senior, ‘willed’ her position at the head of the hallway stairs to junior Art Manning so that he could inspect all the girls,” Mauro wrote in her history of Eloise.

Right before Christmas 1955, Eloise Barry and Maynard M. Eckhardt announced their engagement. Their wedding photo appeared in the Feb. 23, 1956, Miner. They were married at Hope Congregational Church with a reception following at the home of Jim Akers. Akers owned Akers Drug Store, now Seeber’s Pharmacy.

Eloise had been an employee at Akers.

Mac worked for the Pend Oreille Public Utility District as auditor. Soon after he and Eloise were married, he took a position as office manager and auditor for the REA Cooperative in Corvalis.

Mauro said that Mac was civically involved when they lived in Newport.

“He was involved in the local March of Dimes campaigns, chaired Boy Scout campaigns and was in the Kiwanis Club,” she wrote.

She said the Historical Society was thankful for what Eckhardt left it.

“The Historical society was extremely grateful for her generous remembrance,” Mauro wrote.

Eloise was clearly a Newport native.

“Eloise obviously loved Newport and even after moving to Oregon and residing there for many years, called Newport ‘home,’” Mauro wrote.