The Times Union (Albany, New York), November 2, 2006, Thursday

Copyright 2006 The Hearst Corporation
All Rights Reserved
The Times Union (Albany, New York)

November 2, 2006 Thursday
1 EDITION

SECTION: CAPITAL REGION; Pg. B3

HEADLINE: Honoring life of service {SUBHEADLINE} Turning 88, Eleanor Billmyer gets thanks for years of community work

BYLINE: By CAROL DeMARE Staff Writer

BODY:
ALBANY - In her 88 years, it seems, Eleanor Billmyer has done it all.
She worked on the atomic bomb project during World War II and later became a pacifist and took care of the mentally ill, a "socially significant" job, she said.
After landing in Albany with her husband more than 40 years ago, she worked for the state, raised a son, ran for public office and was active in the community, especially the library. Her zest for volunteerism has never waned.
This week, her friends said thanks.
Before the start of Monday night's meeting of the Friends of the Albany Public Library, board members surprised Billmyer with wine, a plaque and a cake for her 88th birthday.
She's been on the board for at least 30 years, the longest-serving member. There are some 800 Friends.
The humble Billmyer called the celebration too much fuss. "I was not a founder," she said. "In fact, there was no reason for this."
Board member Grace White disagrees. "She is a fantastic lady and deserves some recognition for everything she has done," she said.
Billmyer, a decades-long resident of Lancaster Street in Center Square, talked about herself and in so doing unleashed her wit punctuated with one-liners.
A past president and corresponding secretary of the friends, Billmyer said simply, "I read books." She favors mysteries, murders. "I'm not about history, much." However, she is reading "Dead Beat" by Marilyn Johnson, which is about newspaper obits.
She proudly takes credit for starting the friends' Tuesday book reviews in which reviewers and authors appear.
Her library commitment is two-pronged. In 2002, she was among the first elected to the board of trustees. Previously library trustees were appointed by the mayor.
Library spokesman John Cirrin has worked with Billmyer on library projects for 30 years.
"She had some health problems about a year and a half ago, but she makes all the board meetings and the Friends meetings and remains active with the library," he said. "She exemplifies the spirt of volunteerism. Board members are not paid. They do it for love. The library is an institution anyone can get behind because we touch so many people in so many ways."
She is valued for her experience, said Friends President Len Tucker, adding, and she laughs at his jokes.
On Wednesday, she turned 88. "All Saints Day," she said with a twinkle in her eye, "because I'm a saint."
She was born Eleanor Stibitz in Dayton, Ohio, `'along with Orville and Wilbur Wright, the first place of aviation," she points out. She graduated from Heidelberg College in Tiffin, Ohio in 1940 with majors in English and music. "Useless," she says.
She is skilled in the organ and piano but recently it's just the piano, playing an hour a day "for my own pleasure."
After college she returned home, and "I worked for the Manhattan Project" through her employment as a driver for a local research company that had a contract with the project that was developing the atomic bomb.
"I drove a large station wagon, making deliveries and pickups and occasionally a panel truck. I didn't know they were making bombs, but I suspected it was something nasty."
Anxious to do something in line with her pacifism, she took a menial job at the Philadelphia State Hospital through a Quaker group that placed young people. Billmyer was not a Quaker.
"I went from making atom bombs to other disturbed people," she said.
At the hospital she met David Billmyer, a native of Denver and graduate of the University of Denver. A conscientious objector, he did civilian public service projects as an alternative to military service, including fighting forest fires in California.
The Billmyers were married on Jan. 1, 1947. Their son, Steven, works on the city desk of the Syracuse Post-Standard.
David Billmyer received his master's degree in economics at Temple University, and the couple moved to Chicago where he did research at the Meatcutters' National Headquarters, then to Ithaca, where he worked at the Cornell University School of Industrial and Labor Relations.
They came to Albany in the mid-1960s for his job with with the Department of Labor. David Billmyer died in November 1996.
In Chicago, Eleanor Billmyer put out a weekly labor paper and in New Brunswick, N.J. was a reporter and music critic for the Home News. She is retired from the state, where she worked for various agencies, including doing public relations at the Health Department.
A longtime Democratic committee member, she was 61 when, in 1979, she won the first of three terms on the County Legislature, representing the 6th District. She served through 1991.
She and city official Dick Patrick founded Friends of Washington Park, which later became the Washington Park Conservancy. The County Legislature recognized her in 2003 for her service on the county Community Services Board.
A non-traditionalist in most respects, there is one area where Billmyer yields to tradition - martinis.
Don't ask her, "gin or vodka." That annoys her. "A waiter should know," she says, "there's only one way to make a martini - with gin, of course."
Carol DeMare can be reached at 454-5431 or by e-mail at cdemare@timesunion.com.

GRAPHIC: Photo
PHILIP KAMRASS/TIMES UNION ELEANOR BILLMYER, a longtime member of the Friends of the Albany Public Library, unwraps a plaque honoring her service with the group as Len Tucker, center, and Helen Rivett look on.