Science and legacy: This 1962 alumna did it all

Eleanor Ford (62’, Microbiology) was six feet tall. Not literally, but when she shared her passion for laboratory safety, her personality could fill a room.

Despite being only four feet, eleven inches, and a woman in a male-dominated field in the 1960s, when she talked, people listened.

If you ask her brother, Bill Ford, to describe his sister, the picture he paints is incredible. Eleanor was a first-generation college student from rural Oregon, who became the lab safety director for all 26 state labs in California. She was a Peace Corps member who helped establish a tuberculosis research program in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and she left behind a scholarship that still impacts Oregon State University students today.

“There is not a day that goes by that I’m not very honored and respectful of the work that she did and is doing now,” Bill said.

Because of Eleanor, more than 25 microbiology students have received financial help to continue their education, including Amber Leis, now the division chief of plastic hand surgery and residency program director at UC Irvine Department of Plastic Surgery.

“I was the oldest of four children in a household whose total annual income was well below the poverty line. My educational journey to become a doctor would never have been possible without the scholarship support provided to me,” Leis said. “We may not always see the ways in which our gifts better the world, but every act of kindness has ripple effects that extend further than we could ever imagine.”

The legacy and impact of Eleanor Ford is monumental. Her story covers decades, continents, and even a war. The lives she touched, the barriers she broke, and the enduring influence of her scholarship just scratch the surface of her remarkable life.

Eleanor Ford sits in a blue chair in a blue dress.

Eleanor Ford sits in her home in Fairfax City, Virginia in 1978.

A love of microbiology

Eleanor and Bill Ford grew up in Ontario, Oregon, a small town on the eastern border of Oregon and Idaho. Eleanor was the first in the family to attend college, enrolling at Oregon State College in 1958. Her younger brother Bill, followed in his sister's footsteps and traveled to Corvallis to become a student and “rook,” short for rookie, in the Marine Corps. Eleanor was a senior when he arrived and was deeply entrenched in the Department of Microbiology.

“She had a gift for science and an inquiring and inquisitive mind and loved microbiology,” Bill said. “I was more the liberal arts little brother who studied typing, which she did not. I had the pleasure of assisting her by typing up her microbiology notes and spelling those 12 and 15-letter words that made no sense to me, so she could get a better grade on her papers.”

After graduation, she worked for the Department of Health in Portland, focusing on dairy products, and later moved to the Microbial Diseases Laboratory of the California Department of Public Health in Sacramento, California specializing in tuberculosis research.

When Bill graduated and was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Marines, Eleanor joined the Peace Corps. One sibling was sent to fight in the Vietnam War and the other was assigned to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. It was a stressful time for both, but Eleanor remained passionate about establishing a research facility for tuberculosis on the other side of the world.

Following the Peace Corps, she took a year off and decided to walk around Asia and Europe. She walked up the Malay Peninsula, the southernmost point of mainland Southeast Asia to the base camp of Mt. Everest and traveled to Greece.

Five people sit on a couch in a black and white photo in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Eleanor Ford sits on a couch (third from left) with her Peace Corps friends in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia in 1968.

When she returned to the U.S. she picked up where she left off and worked her way up the promotional ranks within the California laboratory system to become the lab safety director. She taught all entering certified public health microbiologists the processes and procedures they would use across the state’s labs.

“She was very well respected within the scientific community because everybody had to go through her safety program before she released them to the bench. She was passionate about scientific safety and disease resistance,” Bill said. “I don’t know enough about it, but I am very glad she was there for the number of years she was there.”

Even without a doctorate, Eleanor became a published researcher and was involved with the American Society of Microbiologists. She died of liver cancer in 1995 but before her death, she established the Public Health Microbiology Trust, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit. She assigned her brother Bill to run the trust in her absence. Bill and Eleanor’s neice Janna are now Co-Trustees.

“She wanted it to last for five or ten years if possible. And of course, being the smart little brother that I was, I asked her if she’d like it to last forever. And she said, ‘Yeah, that would be quite a legacy,’” Bill said.

The original purpose of the trust was to provide educational grants to public health microbiologists within the state of California. Over time the family wanted to switch to something that had a longer lasting benefit. In collaboration with the OSU Foundation and the Department of Microbiology, the Eleanor G. Ford Memorial Scholarship was first awarded in 1999.

Awarded to juniors who are microbiology or biohealth students, preference is given to those in the lowest income groups, and for those who have demonstrated the potential for promising careers in public health microbiology.

“It is an incredible feeling to be able to contribute to someone who would have dropped out of school,” Bill said. He is hopeful that Eleanor's gift inspires them to leave their own legacy and give back when they can do so.

Like she told her brother, it is a remarkable thing to live a life that leaves a legacy. And Eleanor Ford did just that.