Eleanor Pulver, 95, left her mark on Pine Plains

PINE PLAINS — When reflecting back, most people probably think their mom was just about the most perfect mom there ever was. In the case of the Chair of the Dutchess County Legislature Gregg Pulver (R-19), a Pine Plains native whose family’s ties to the Harlem Valley go back 315 years — it moved to town in 1711 — when he speaks of his late mother, Eleanor Yakubowski Pulver, in such glowing terms he’s not exaggerating.

Eleanor passed away on Thursday, Feb. 3, at the age of 95. Throughout her life she was a pillar of the community.

Acknowledging he was especially close to his mother, Pulver grew up on the family farm alongside his sister, Judith, under the loving embrace of his mom and dad, Anthony “Brud” Pulver, another pillar of the community in his own right.

Eleanor, though born in Sheffield, Mass., grew up in Millerton.

“I don’t know quite why she was born in Sheffield,” said her son, “but her family lived in Millerton their whole lives. She had nine siblings. A big part of her life was Millerton until she married dad.”

After dating for a while in what Pulver described as a “typical romance,” the pair wed on Feb. 7, 1959 and soon started their family.

“It was a great life,” said Pulver. “We knew we were loved, knew they always had our backs. My father was farming and running the business; she certainly ran the household. It was kind of a bucolic childhood; she cooked dinner every night, we chatted as a family, we always sat down every night at the dinner table.”

Pulver said much of his mom’s life also centered around the Catholic Church; in Pine Plains that was St. Anthony’s.

“She was very religious. We spent a lot of time in the Catholic church, I was an alter boy and my sister played the organ,” remembered Pulver. “A typical Sunday meant I arrived at church at 8 a.m. because she thought I needed that time to reflect on my sins. After 11 o’clock Mass the priest would come to our house and they would count collections, then the priest would usually stay for Sunday dinner.”

Eleanor also served as a Eucharistic Minister and Lector at St. Anthony’s, and was known for always making sure the church had flowers.

“She would always threaten us with God knowing what we did, she knew what we did wrong and the town knew what we did, so there was this trifecta of guilt,” he added with a soft chuckle. “We always didn’t want to disappoint her, we didn’t want to disappoint God and we didn’t want to disappoint the town.”

In addition to running the household, Eleanor worked for Farm Credit for more than 35 years, putting her  bookkeeping skills to use. She was respected by her colleagues, her bosses and her clients.

She also helped her husband run his trucking business, A. Pulver Trucking, and later the farm (which kept the same name).

“She was a great mom, a great business person and just a caring person,” said Pulver.

More importantly, she put family first. When Brud became ill roughly 15 years ago, she stepped in to care for him.

“Mom took dad to dialysis three days a week for two years,” said Pulver. “It was tough. I told her, ‘Mom you’ve got to let me take dad to dialysis. It’s going to snowstorm or something…’ So I said, ‘This Saturday I’m taking dad to dialysis, what time to you leave?’ she said, ‘7 o’clock,’ I got there 10 minutes before 7 a.m. and they were gone. Finally I had to get there at 6:30. I had to kidnap him. They were a team in every sense of the word. They raised us as a team, they were inseparable. In 2008 he died, on Aug. 26. He made sure he missed our birthdays.”

Eleanor and Gregg shared the same August birthday, just days before Brudd died.

Pulver, who was Pine Plains town supervisor for many years, said when he became a county legislator, and then was elected chair of the Legislature, his mom was enormously proud.

“I think they both instilled a sense of community service in me, without a doubt, but my father didn’t understand why I wanted to do politics; my mother encouraged politics,” he said. “She was proud. My first term as chairman of the Legislature I brought her down with my mother-in-law, my wife and my daughter; my mom the strongest of all.”

Pulver said until a couple of years ago, he knew his mom would always give him good counsel. He would regularly run things by her just on a whim. They spent many mornings together having coffee; he always made sure she had a peanut butter hard roll and the newspaper.

“She read the newspaper cover to cover, anything that you printed or anything I mailed out, flyers — she had copies of everything,” he said, noting his mom was his biggest political fan. “Her daily paper was the Poughkeepsie Journal, but she did not miss The Millerton News, and the Register Herald back in the day. But she was an avid reader  of The Millerton News -— and I’m not making that up.”

Pulver will miss his mom greatly, but acknowledged at 95, “she had a great run.” He said he’s just thankful he had so many wonderful years to share with her. More than anything, he hopes people remember her for her incredible kindness.

“The thing is that she cared about people,” said Pulver. “It was always comforting to know she was there.”