Obituary - Eleanor Barry Peaseley

PEASELEY, Eleanor Barry, widow of Gabriel Bradstreet Peaseley 5th, died April 6, 2024. She was born July 31, 1932, in Philadelphia, the first child of John Aloysius Barry of Philadelphia and Edith Maigret Barry, originally of Beaucourt, Territoire de Belfort, France.

Eleanor and her brother grew up first in the Spring Garden section of Philadelphia and then, after their father's untimely death, in the Mount Airy neighborhood, with her mother, maternal grandmother, and paternal aunts. The family spent each summer at "Pochuck," their Pocono Mountain farm, picking huckleberries and apples, reading by lantern light, and tramping barefoot along stone walls and among hemlocks and mountain laurel down to their beautiful "Glen Falls" and on to the villages of South Sterling and Newfoundland. Some years the family would linger at Pochuck until Philadelphia experienced its first frost, which was said to extinguish polio germs.

Back in Philadelphia, Eleanor graduated from Holy Cross School and from Cecilian Academy, at the head of each class. Eleanor then took a customer service job with the local telephone company. Occasionally, her mother allowed her weekends with friends at the "dry" New Jersey Shore town of Ocean City. There, fate united her with a young Army officer from Richmond, who was stationed at nearby Ft. Monmouth.

Eleanor and Brad were married in the spring of 1953 and then were transferred to Ft. Gordon, Ga., where Eleanor endured a kind of weather never experienced in Pennsylvania. Thereafter, Eleanor and Brad lived in Richmond, Bristol, and Northern Virginia. The summer of 1959 found them back in Richmond, and they brought up their two sons in western Henrico County. Eleanor began her involvement with the Richmond SPCA, as a volunteer member of its Women's League and as a financial donor.

In 1976, Eleanor and Brad returned to the Washington, D.C., area, where Eleanor continued to toil and advocate for the humane treatment of animals. She was not a radical or an extremist, but her love for four-legged creatures defined and motivated her. Many days – and many nights – she literally risked life and limb in the rescue and comfort of the sorts of distressed creatures whose existences and terrors most of us choose to ignore. In 2001, Brad had retired, and Eleanor and he returned to Richmond. At her death, Eleanor was a communicant of St. Mary's Roman Catholic Church, whose Father Michael Renninger she especially esteemed.

Eleanor is survived by her brother, John Aloysius Barry Jr. of West Chester, Pa.; by her sons, Thomas Carter Peaseley and Gabriel Bradstreet Peaseley VI, and by daughters-in-law, Katharine Lunt Peaseley and Cynthia Lee Peaseley, all of Richmond; and by her grandchildren, Carter Crutchfield Peaseley (and his wife Melissa Johnson Peaseley) of Quincy, Mass., John Barry Peaseley (and his wife Maria Mayo Peaseley) of Wheat Ridge, Colo., Gabriel Bradstreet Peaseley VII of Richmond, William Meredith Lee Peaseley of Reston, and Martha Maigret Peaseley of New York City.

A graveside burial service will be held at 3 p.m., Thursday, April 11, in Hollywood Cemetery.

Eleanor's family deeply appreciates the loving care provided by the staff of Westminster Canterbury during her final months.