About Eleanor
Eleanor Sullivan
Taught by her grandmother (some would say “indoctrinated”) that her ancestors founded an exemplary community in Ohio, Eleanor Sullivan grew up with an unabashed appreciation that she hadn’t lived then. Strictly religious, their lives were filled with work (unending, back-breaking work), demands for cleanliness (they scrubbed everything in sight!), and piety (lots of piety). “No, thanks,” Eleanor often said to herself.
Her Nursing Career
Fast forward many decades. Eleanor, widowed with five children, became first an RN, then earned her doctorate, and finally became a professor and dean of nursing at the University of Kansas. She authored award-winning books in nursing, numerous journal articles and edited a professional journal. She has testified before the U. S. Senate, served on a National Institutes of Health council, presented papers to international audiences, been quoted in Chicago Tribune, St. Louis PostDispatch, and Rolling Stone, and named “Who’s Who in Health Care” by KansasCity Business Journal. Additionally, she served as president of the world’s largest nursing organization. Read her resume here.
Writing Mysteries
Ten years ago, she turned her attention to writing mystery fiction, publishing three medical mysteries featuring nurse sleuth Monika Everhardt: Twice Dead, Deadly Diversion and Assumed Dead.
Then she looked for another challenge. Recalling her grandmother’s admiration for their mutual ancestor and the town he founded, she traveled to Ohio again. There she found the village—named Zoar for the refuge Lot found when he escaped Sodom just like the Separatists had escaped religious persecution in Germany—much as it was in the 19th century. Museums, shops, and private homes dot the roads and paths that surround the community garden that anchors the town and the original inhabitants’ beliefs.
Digging deeper, she found that the lives she envisioned as bleak were filled with prosperity. These industrious Germans, who called themselves the Society of Separatists, thrived in the New World. They crafted beautiful, simply-styled furniture, wove unique coverlets, baked delicious bread and pastries, cultivated flowers and herbs even building a greenhouse to grow citrus fruit, and kept healthy before cleanliness was known to prevent disease. They sold the excess from their plentiful harvests, as well as their goods, to cities as far away as New York, and attracted visitors for stays in their successful hotel. Read more about the village and its inhabitants…
Now Eleanor has turned her family heritage into fact-based fiction with a series of mystery novels set in Zoar. The stories feature a midwife and her cabinet-maker husband. Cover Her Body is the first in the Singular Village Mystery series.
The stories celebrate the lives of the mostly women and some men who carved a life out of the wilderness to build a town, clear and plant fields, construct industries and, in one very fortuitous stroke of luck, build the Ohio Canal through their land.
How lucky? Prior to building the canal, the inhabitants adopted celibacy so the women would be free of childbearing. After money from the canal paid their mortgage, the villagers again allowed marriage. Without that provision, no Eleanor, no stories!
