Eleanor “Ellie” Elizabeth Scrudder, 81, a former member of the Ministry Council of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, died March 26, 2020. She had been in hospice care at home for a short time. She was born Eleanor Hillman in Sedalia, Missouri, on December 30, 1938, to Howard R. and Ruth Naomi Keele Hillman. Ellie grew up in Sedalia and attended Central Missouri State Teacher’s College in Warrensburg for a year before taking a job at AT&T in Kansas City as a keypunch operator. She left this job to attend Bethel College in McKenzie, Tennessee, where she studied Christian Education and Business.
Ellie met Norlan Scrudder while they were both students at Bethel College. They married on December 26, 1960, after Norlan graduated from the Cumberland Presbyterian Theological Seminary.
Ellie was the wife of the Reverend Norlan David Scrudder, daughter-in-law of the Reverend Marion Clinton Scrudder, mother of the Reverend Stephanie Scrudder Brown, and grandmother of candidate Houston Brown. She was at Norlan’s side through a ministry which took them from New Ebenezer in Troy, Tennessee, across the denomination to Faith Church, Tulsa, Oklahoma, to Memphis, Tennessee, where Norlan served as the second director of the Program of Alternate Studies, and then back to Ada, in Oklahoma.
Ellie’s volunteerism was remarkable. She turned her talents to myriad tasks within every community in which she found herself. Prominently, she volunteered at Tahlequah Hospital in every imaginable position for over seventeen years. The hospital honored her with their Hearts of Gold award in February 2019.
Ellie worked in Christian education both at the congregational and denominational level. She served as president of Cumberland Presbyterian Women in 1997-1998 as the group was transitioning to Cumberland Presbyterian Women’s Ministry. She served on the Ministry Council when it was in its infancy. As a minister’s wife and in her own right, she served the Cumberland Presbyterian Church long and well.
The family requests that, in lieu of flowers, honorariums be made to:
Discipleship Ministry Team of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church
8207 Traditional Place
Cordova, TN 38016
Program of Alternate Studies of Memphis Theological Seminary
168 E Parkway South
Memphis, TN 38104
