Elinor Westenburg Cotts, 88, of Ponte Vedra Beach, FL, previously Asheville, North Carolina, and New York City, NY, passed away peacefully on February 8, 2025.
Elinor was a native Mid-Westerner, born in South Dakota to Merle and Edna Trickey and raised in Des Moines, Iowa, along with her older sister, Margaret Browman. She married Richard Westenburg in 1957 and, after several career steps, followed his music and conducting career to New York City, where their children, Eric and Kirsten, were born and raised. After seventeen years of marriage, Elin and Richard divorced but raised their kids in New York City. Two years after their divorce, Elinor met Douglas J. Cotts, dated for two years, and married in 1977. Doug and Elin enjoyed life in New York City for three decades, working, traveling, escaping on steam train excursions, volunteering, attending the Unitarian Church of All Souls, and enjoying all the arts and music New York offered.
In 2006, Doug and Elin retired to Asheville, North Carolina, and immersed themselves in the arts, the Unitarian Universalist Church of Asheville, and new friendships. After 32 years of marriage, Doug passed in 2009 after a short battle with lymphoma cancer.
Elinor continued to enjoy Ashville through their Beaverdam Run community, dinner group, the arts and music, and new friends, just as she and Doug had planned to embrace together. She moved to Givens Estates in 2016 and continued to enjoy her church, activities, friends, and volunteering. With no family in North Carolina and signs of Alzheimer’s, Elin moved to Ponte Vedra Beach in 2023 to be close to her daughter and son-in-law and get the increased level of care she needed.
Elinor is survived by her son, Eric Westenburg of Reno, Nevada, and her daughter and son-in-law, Kirsten and Donald Barnhorst, Jr. of Ponte Vedra Beach, FL, along with six grandchildren, Decker (husband Kaden LeFevre), and Ashton Westenburg, and Lauren, Margaret, Thomas and Matthew Barnhorst; two great-grandchildren, Eleanor (Nori) and Emory (Emmy) LeFevre; brother-in-law, Daniel Cotts, Doug’s identical twin brother of Fairfield, IA.
In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be made to the Alzheimer’s Association via this Tribute Page listed for Elinor W. Cotts:
http://act.alz.org/goto/ElinorWCotts
