- Date Of Birth: September 8, 1927
- Date Of Death: August 12, 2017
- State: Colorado
Eleanor (Ellie) Van Court, age 89, of Denver, passed away at Brookdale Lakewood Senior Living in Lakewood on Saturday, August 12, 2017. She was known to her family and friends as “Nifty”. She was born in Kearney, New Jersey, on September 8, 1927 and was the daughter of Edna Van Holland. She was a 1944 graduate of Kearney High School. Ellie grew up in New Jersey and married William T. (Bill) Van Court in 1949. Immediately following their wedding, Ellie and Bill moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico where Bill attended the University of New Mexico. They moved to Denver in 1954. Ellie worked at a variety of jobs throughout her life. During high school, after classes ended, she helped the War Effort at an RCA plant, making radio tubes. After high school, she worked first as a clerk and then as an assistant buyer at the Hahne & Company department store, in Newark, New Jersey. In Albuquerque, before the birth of her first child, Ellie worked at the Kistler-Collister department store. She also managed an apartment building while Bill was earning his college degree. Ellie was then a devoted stay-at-home mother until the early 1970s, when she took over the administration of Bill’s growing commercial real estate appraisal company, Van Court & Company. She continued to manage the family business until Bill retired in the late 1990s. Though she claimed to be undistinguished, Ellie had many accomplishments during her life. In the 1960s, she raised and trained Golden Retrievers, earning both conformation and obedience titles with her dogs. She was critically important to Bill’s success in the appraisal world, both caring for the family while Bill traveled and then serving with him during his leadership of the American Institute of Real Estate Appraisers/Appraisal Institute. Ellie instilled a passion for reading and learning in her children, and all 3 are avid learners to this day. She always had a cat in the household, beginning with Sylvester, who was rescued from within the walls of an Albuquerque house, and ending with her beloved Burmese, Hershey. Surviving Ellie are her husband, Bill Van Court, and her children, Laurie, Peter and Amy Van Court. She was preceded in death by her mother.
