Eleanor Haigler Pate who had spent the past eight years living at the Methodist Oaks retirement center near Orangeburg, S. C., died March 20, 2011. She was 100 years old. Born June 5, 1910, she was one of seven children of James Franklin Haigler and his wife Pearl Pressley Haigler of Union County, NC and later Richmond County, NC. Eleanor, who as a youth had Hollywood good looks, grew up on a farm. She graduated from Rockingham High School at the beginning of the Great Depression and enrolled in what today is Spartanburg Methodist College, Spartanburg, SC. The school arranged local jobs for students to pay their tuition and living expenses. After intentionally failing the weaving room dexterity test to avoid work at a cotton mill and the food-tray-carrying test at a downtown drugstore Eleanor and her lack of employment and her stunning good looks came to the personal attention of the President of the college. Noting she was obviously more suited for office work, he hired her on the spot, no test required. She worked in the President's office until she graduated in 1931. Following this, she moved to Camden, SC to live with her sister and work in the A&P grocery store for her sister's husband. That's where she met and married a clerk named Clyde Pate of Cassatt, SC in a depression-era publicity event held on the stage of a movie theatre in December 9, 1932. A promoter had convinced Camden merchants that shoppers could be drawn into the town if they held a contest and put up money for the first couple to get married on the stage of a Broad Street movie theatre. A Florida honeymoon trip was included. While Eleanor and Clyde exchanged vows in front of a Saturday night packed house, the promoter skipped town with all the money. They got a little cash and some household goods but the Florida honeymoon was reduced to a three day trip to Myrtle Beach. They had four sons. While she may have been outnumbered by males, make no mistake, Eleanor ran the household. She made the rules, ended arguments and nursed boys-being-boys injuries. She also saw to it that each was schooled in the social graces and expected her boys in public to be well dressed, well groomed and well behaved. One son became manager of one of the busiest gate concourses at Atlanta's Hartsfield International Airport, another a banker and city councilman, another a broadcast journalist and trade association executive and another an honor graduate, college dean and financial planner. Clyde and Eleanor Pate spent most of their lives in Cheraw, SC. Clyde managed the local A&P and Eleanor worked at Belks and later managed the Fashion Post a ladies dress shop. She was an accomplished seamstress and adept at needle point, knitting and cross-stitch and was an above average bridge player. Both she and her husband were active in the First United Methodist Church of Cheraw nearly sixty years. She was a fifty year member of the Eastern Star serving several terms as Worthy Matron and also held a statewide office. Her husband served several terms as Worshipful Master. In their retirement years, they were members of the Cheraw Senior Citizens Club. In 2010 the SC House and SC Senate adopted resolutions commending Mrs. Pate for her 100th birthday. Her husband died in 1980. She lost a son, Mallory, in 1987. Eleanor Jane Haigler Pate is survived by three sons: Clyde, and his wife Peggy, of Fayetteville, Ga., Jerry D. of Columbia, S.C. and Van and his wife Anne of Charlotte. She is also survived by a sister, Betty Adams and her husband Zane, and brother Mac Haigler and his wife Ina, all of Rockingham, NC. She leaves seven grandchildren and three great grandchildren.