Tributes

Eleanor Venn Tindle, A Model Volunteer Eleanor Venn Tindle, 95, who survived a heart attack while on safari in Africa fifteen years ago, died peacefully on 7 Sept. at her apartment in Beaumont in Bryn Mawr. Mrs. Tindle, the daughter of a railroad executive, was born in Wyola in Newtown Square and attended Radnor High School where she met her future husband, James Knox Tindle. However conventional the circumstances of her youth she never conformed to the Main Line stereotype of the time; she delighted in regaling her grandchildren with tales of being an artist’s model at the age of 16 and in an era when few high school students wandered far from the classroom she spent six months of her senior year traveling through France. After graduation from Millersville State Teachers College and marrying she and her new husband moved to the family estate at Valley Forge Farm where she began a long and productive career as a volunteer. The Cabin at Washington Memorial Chapel and Paoli Memorial Hospital were among her charities but her favorite was the Women’s Exchange of Wayne, which she served as chairman. As Town & Country Magazine said in an article about the Exchange, “Mrs. Tindle hears people sigh affectionately that the place never changes. “’But I think it’s the feeling they get here that never changes. It’s like Christmas to them because they associate this place with giving. With buying things for someone else, not for themselves.”’ In her later years she developed macular degeneration, which forced her to give up her volunteer work, but she remained a vital part of the Beaumont community. “She was a remarkable blend of dignity and a sense of humor,” said her friend Louise Guthrie, also of Beaumont. “You never heard her complain.” Even while in the hospital in Nairobi, where she became a popular attraction for the native staffers, she retained her good humor. “They’ve never seen anyone as old as me,” the then-80 year old Mrs. Tindle told her daughters Page Fritts, Lynne Schnyder, and Randy Smith, who were with her in Kenya. Besides her daughters Mrs. Tindle is survived by her six grandchildren and eight great grandchildren. Service and internment will be private in Washington Memorial Chapel Churchyard

Tributes

Eleanor Venn Tindle

August 24, 1912 - September 7, 2007