Gladys Elinor Wallace was born in Normandy, Illinois, on April 15, 1922 and passed away on October 8, 2020. She has always been known as Elinor to family and friends. She moved to Walnut, Illinois in 1926 and joined the First Christian Church when she was eight years old. She graduated from Walnut Community High School in 1940. Elinor loved music, played the saxophone in the high school band, and sang in the school chorus and in a special quartet. She was a cheerleader and served as class president in 1939. During World War II, Elinor worked at the Dixon, Illinois ordinance plant as a switchboard operator. Elinor married Edward Aagesen in 1948. They lived on a farm near Tampico, Illinois where they raised pigs and grew hybrid seed corn and soybeans. Elinor also worked in Walnut on the switchboard, and worked in a bank for a total of thirty years. Her husband Edward passed away in 1987.
On Valentine’s Day, 1992, Elinor married high school classmate Dr. Harold D. Wallace, a retired professor at the University of Florida in Gainesville. Elinor had no children from her first marriage, but when she married Harold she became step-mother to four daughters. She has been a caring, loving, and special mother to these daughters and their families, and has received much love in return.
Elinor has always enjoyed sports and quickly became a Gator sports fan. She was especially fond of Gator football, basketball, volleyball, and gymnastics. She was a member of the Gainesville Golf & Country Club with husband Harold, and was an avid golfer well into her nineties. Elinor was a member of the First Presbyterian Church of Gainesville where she served as an usher and was an active member of the Gordon Hoover Bible Study class.
Elinor was predeceased by her parents, Anna Marie Peterson and LeRoy Glaze; five sisters, Edna, Nina, Nona, Dorothy, and Doris Ann; first husband Edward Aagesen; and second husband Harold D. Wallace. She is survived by four daughters – Cheryl Morris (Chuck), JoEllen Preston (Steve), Janet Rose (Wayne), and Marcia DeDominico (Tony); nine grandchildren, fifteen great-grandchildren, and many beloved nieces, nephews, and extended family members.
Arrangements are under the care of Forest Meadows Funeral Home, 725 NW 23rd Avenue, Gainesville, FL 32609
Services to be determined at a future date. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made in her name to First Presbyterian Church of Gainesville.
Elinor was my second and last aunt, and I was blessed to have had them both in my life. She was such a perfect fit for my uncle’s retirement years, sharing his love of all things Gators and Golf. I recall that she and my mother instantly connected upon meeting for the very first time, and my mom loved Elinor as if she were her own sister. She was easy to love, to enjoy, and to appreciate. Elinor was an unexpected and much needed gift.
Elinor was my maternal aunt whom I spent and loved much time with her and her first husband, Augie, on their farm in Illinois. I can remember most her collecting eggs every day from her roughly 100 chickens and how the buckets of eggs filled their back screened in porch. It always amazed me that there were so many eggs and that she collected them herself each and every day. I also loved watching her and Augie while they were u the hog lots together. Those hogs were so big to me as a child of less than 10 years yet Aunt Elinor and Uncle Aug would push them around as needed like they weighed nothing. Aunt Elinor always had cats on the farm and I remember one cat, a white female, as being the only one allowed into the house. I didn’t see much of Aunt Elinor after she married Hal and moved down to Florida. They would come back to Illinois every summer for several months where we got to reconnect and I was blessed with getting to know Hal. It was a sad day when they announced the last summer that they would be returning to Illinois but I was able to keep in contact with long phone calls and letters. Aunt Elinor was a blessing in my life and in many ways more than an aunt. She was like a second mother and friend. I am gong to miss her dearly