Elinor A. Bunn died at home Dec. 5, 2023, after a yearlong battle with cancer.
Our mom was born on July 17, 1929, in Newark, New Jersey, daughter of German immigrants. She spoke only German until she was 7 years old.
Before her marriage she was the executive secretary for the vice president of Union Carbide. When she was 20, she was with a friend working the name tag table at the YWCA dance when a handsome young man from California came up to her. That was her future husband Tom Bunn, a resident of La Cañada since 1933, who during the course of that evening asked her to marry him. It was truly love at first sight. They married 4 years later. She moved with him, then a lieutenant in the U.S. Navy to San Diego and ended up in La Cañada. They built a home there in 1960, the same home where she passed away.
She was a member of the Thursday Club since 1962 and was the longest serving member at her death. She was also a member of the La Cañada Flintridge Orthopaedic Guild beginning in 1966 and volunteered thousands of hours at the Orthopaedic Hospital in Los Angeles. She and Tom were also longtime members of the La Cañada Presbyterian Church, where they made close friendships that lasted lifetimes. Elinor and Tom bought a vacation home in Pine Mountain Club, where they spent 27 years of weekends.
She was a patriot and a member of the Greatest Generation.
She was predeceased by her husband Thomas S. Bunn Jr. and is survived by her sister-in-law Ardis Bunn, her son Tom and daughter-in-law Gerrie, daughter Karla and son Richard, 7 grandchildren and 2 great-grandchildren and a loving extended family.
There will be no services.
