Eleanor Margaret Hayes

Eleanor Margaret Hayes died at home in Half Moon Bay on October 22, 2024. She was seventy-six.

She was born in Half Moon Bay on March 12, 1948, to Elias Whitfield, a fisherman, and Margaret Whitfield, who taught her to garden. For thirty-eight years, from 1971 to 2009, she taught third grade in Room 12 at Ocean Shore Elementary.

She married Thomas Hayes in 1969, and they were married for forty-two years. They raised Daniel and Susan in the house on Poplar Street, where there was almost always someone over for Sunday dinner. She had tea with her friend Ruth every Tuesday for fifty years, and every summer she gave tomatoes and flowers from her garden to the neighbors.

She was preceded in death by Thomas, in 2011, and by her brother, Arthur. She is survived by her children, Daniel and Susan; her grandchildren, Rebecca, Sarah and Michael; her great-granddaughter, June; and Ruth Alvarez, her friend of fifty years.

Instead of flowers, the family asks that you plant something in her memory.