Biography

Eleanor Beatty Strait was born in 1919 on a farm near Selma, in Van Buren County in southeast Iowa. Her father had taught school, later becoming a rural mail carrier. The family moved into the town of Keosauqua when she was in high school. Eleanor Strait graduated from Keosauqua High School with a certificate in teaching as well as a diploma. She taught rural school for three years before marrying a local farmer Rex Strait in 1941. He insisted that his wife not work after marriage—a proposal she accepted as long as he supported her volunteer activities. She was an officer with the Parent Teacher Association and the Van Buren County Farm Bureau. She was an active 4-H leader and advisor to the County Extension Service. She became a Master Farm Homemaker in 1964 and was subsequently the Iowa Farm Bureau Federation delegate to the Associated Country Women of the World. She became president of the National Guild of Master Farm Homemakers in 1990 and served for two years. She continues to live with her husband on the Strait farm five miles northwest of Keosauqua.

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