Barbara Bostwick Eaton, 97, Served On The YWCA Board of Directors

RIDGEWOOD, N.J. — Barbara Bostwick Eaton, 97, died in her village home Wednesday of natural causes.

She was born in Brooklyn and grew up in Westfield.

She was a 1936 graduate of Westfield High School and a 1938 graduate of Arlington Hall Jr. College in Virginia in 1938.

She married Charles Eaton and moved to Tenafly in 1940. Though busy raising three children and helping her husband with a growing business, she joined the then Englewood Junior League and in 1949 was presented with the Junior League's Sustainers Award for the Volunteer of the Year.

The Eatons moved to Ridgewood and soon Barbara became involved in community volunteer work. In 1958, she was chairman of the Valley Hospital Cotillion, an annual fundraiser for the hospital.

Eaton was elected to the YWCA Board of Directors and served as president from 1962 to 1965 and again in 1982. She also served on the Y's Board of Trustees. In 1967 she was presented with the Essie W. Mayer Award for Outstanding Leadership. She chaired the YWCA twin dinner in 1978 and 1979. In 1979, she co-chaired the YWCA-YMCA building expansion campaign. She was given special recognition from the YMCA.

In 1982, she and others were selected as recipients of the Mayor's Award for Excellence presented by the late Mayor Ed Butler.

In 1988, she was selected " Volunteer of the Week" by The Record newspaper.

In 1960, she was ordained as the first woman elder of the West Side Presbyterian Church and served as first woman Clerk of Session for six years. In the last several years she volunteered weekly in the Church office.

Love and support from her family and many friends, good books, needlepoint, and occasional visits to and from her family filled her days in the later years.

She is survived by her daughters, Bette Eaton Montaperto, and her husband, Ron of Morehead City, North Carolina, and Nancy Eaton Groff, and her husband Neal of Vail, Colorado, son Larry C. Eaton, and her wife Meg of Village of Golf, Florida, and several grandchildren and great grandchildren.

A memorial service will be held in early spring at the West Side Presbyterian Church. Internment will be in the Memorial Garden at the West Side Church.

Gifts in her memory may be sent to the West Side Church Building Fund, 6 South Monroe St., Ridgewood, NJ 07450.

Her family would like to thank her many friends who supported her, loved her and comforted her in her last years and the fine nurses and Hospice who attended to her needs in her last months.

C.C. Van Emburgh Funeral Home is handling the arrangements.

Barbara Bostwick Eaton — Courtesy of C.C. VanEmburgh Funeral Home