Obituary for Ellen Girdler Breslauer November 13, 1947 - August 1, 2022

Ellen died from pancreatic cancer on August 1, 2022.

Ellen was born November 13, 1947 the younger daughter to Lew Girdler and Betty Stripp Girdler.

Ellen attended the University of California at Berkeley where she met her husband Russell Breslauer. She majored in French with a minor in anthropology. Ellen was a Phi Beta Kappa member. Later she earned her MBA also from the University of California.

She married Russell Breslauer on August 27, 1967 at Villa Montalvo in Saratoga. She worked as Secretary and Treasurer for Bank of America Real Estate Investment Trust (BRE then BARI). She taught accounting at night for Chabot College.

She was interested in the performing arts and regularly went to the theater, opera, ballet, California Revels.

She and Russell bought a house in Ashland Oregon and would go up there for plays and much more, we had parties there, and we went running and skiing, hiking, folk dancing and line dancing. Ellen’s exercise passion was for kayaking in inflatable kayaks on the rivers of Oregon and northern California. We went up for the fall holidays and spent Christmases caroling with our own group first then with the town at the town square.

Ellen was interested in nature and was a life member of the California Academy of Sciences. She had many travels often involving ecotourism like to Trinidad and Tobago, Costa Rica, the Galapagos, Alaska, and New Zealand.

Ellen was active in sports. She was a runner, and enjoyed the Avon Marathon and the Bay to Breakers event, where she and Russell ran in costume. She was a long-time member of the Dolphin South End Runners (DSE) where she and Russell were noted for their matching humorous hats. She was also a dancer, taking up international folk dance and Scottish Country Dance when in college. Later she became active with the Golden Gate Park Senior Center (GGPSC). Although she started going there for folk dance, she took up line dance and weight training. She belonged to Music Makers, the GGPSC singing group, and enjoyed their parties.

Ellen is survived by her husband Russell and many nieces and nephews and grand nieces and grand nephews.

Please make donations to the GGPSC, California Academy of Sciences or your favorite charity.

There will be a memorial open house in San Francisco at 886-37th Avenue on Saturday August 27, 2022 from 1 PM to 4 PM.

There will be a Zoom meeting for the whole time.  Here is the Zoom link: https://pitt.zoom.us/j/ 3958351803

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