Cornelia (Neal) Eldridge, formerly of Sun Valley, a retired management consultant, died at her Durango, Colo., home Friday, Aug. 29, of ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig's disease. She was 67 years old.
For many years she worked closely, as head of her own firm, with chief executive officers of major corporations such as Estee Lauder when it was opening in Russia, AT&T during the breakup of the Bell System, as well as Anderson Consulting, E. F. Hutton, Coca Cola and others. She also served as chairman, largely in a consulting role, of several startup companies.
She moved to Durango from Sun Valley, her original retirement home, in August 2006 to be closer to her grandchildren, a major focus in her life.
In Sun Valley, she served on the board for the Women's Auxiliary of St. Luke's Wood River Medical Center and was active as a volunteer with the Sun Valley Summer Symphony and the Sun Valley Center for the Arts. She also was on the board of Croy Canyon Ranch Foundation, developing an assisted-living facility. She was an active member of St. Thomas Episcopal Church in Sun Valley, where she volunteered for the Stewardship Committee, among others.
Until her diagnosis at the end of April, she was on the board of the Women's Resource Center in Durango, a member of Durango Friends of the Arts and a volunteer in fundraising for Music in the Mountains, Durango's classical music festival. She and friends formed a garden club called Soil Sisters, and her interests included golf, tennis, plein-air painting and bridge.
She was born in Englewood, N.J. to John Quincy Adams Flanagan and Dorothea Meinke Flanagan, both of whom preceded her in death.
She earned bachelor of arts and bachelor of fine arts degrees from Ohio Wesleyan University and master's degrees in business administration and education from the University of Massachusetts. She also earned a master's degree in French literature from the University of Grenoble in France. Her first job was as a teacher of English and French in Northhampton, Mass.
She continued to further her art education in the summer of 2006 by participating in the La Romita Artist Group in Umbria, Italy, led by renowned Salt Lake City artist Marion Dunn. Her watercolor sketches were popular among her many friends in Sun Valley.
In 2007 she was an integral part of the group that put together a tribute and celebration honoring Carol and Earl Holding, and was co-chairman of the Children's Program, held at Dollar Lodge.
She began her career as a consultant with Mass Mutual Insurance in Springfield, Mass., where she became a vice president, and then moved to Touche Ross in New York, as a vice president in the consulting division. She started her own business, Eldridge & Associates, in 1981, with E. F. Hutton as her first client.
In recent years she was a guest lecturer at the Stanford Graduate School of Business and Harvard Business School.
She was married first to the late G. Barton Ogden, the father of her children, and then to John Niles Eldridge. Both marriages ended in divorce.
She is survived by a son, Jared Ogden of Durango, and his wife, Kristin Carpenter Ogden; a daughter, Baroness Averill Ogden Ginsberg of London, England, and her husband, Baron Winston Maxwell Ginsberg; two grandchildren, Tobin Ogden and Ellen Isabella Ogden of Durango; and a brother, John Flanagan of Dillsburg, Penn. She also is survived by a friend and companion, James Foster of Durango.
A celebration of her life will be held on Tuesday, Sept. 9, at 4 p.m. in St. Thomas Episcopal Church in Sun Valley. A reception will follow.
A similar event will be held on Sunday, Sept. 14, in Durango at a time and place to be determined.
The family requests that, in lieu of flowers, memorial contributions be made to St. Luke's Wood River Medical Center Foundation or the Sun Valley Center for the Arts.
