Dr. Eileen M. Starr died on Wednesday, September 30, 2020 from cardiac arrest after bouts with COVID and a broken leg. She was a Spokane resident since 1979.
Eileen, originally from Lakewood, Ohio, graduated from Lakewood High School where she received the Selzer Award for Biology. She earned a B.S. and A.M. from the University of Michigan in Science Education and a Ph.D. from Washington State University. She was a member of the Phi Kappa Phi academic fraternity.
During her University of Michigan freshman orientation in 1958, Eileen discovered the “Exhibit Museum,” and immediately asked for a job. The only student position that offered enough hours was as a student operator of the soon-to-be installed Spitz A-1 planetarium. She accepted it and became the museum’s first student planetarium operator.
Eileen credits her tenure as a U-M Museum of Natural History student docent for directing her life course, which included working as either a planetarium director or a teacher of Earth Science classes in cities across the country. Eileen was a gifted and passionate teacher who infused her lessons with humor. She had the ability to draw her students into subjects they never expected to find interesting. Eileen taught junior and senior high science classes in Richmond, Indiana; Hershey, Pennsylvania; and Rockwood, Maryland. She was planetarium director at the William Penn Memorial Museum in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania; for the Milwaukee, Wisconsin public schools; the Jacksonville Museum of Arts and Sciences in Jacksonville, Florida; at Eastern Washington University in Cheney, Washington; and at Valley City State University, in Valley City, North Dakota. She was director of the Eastern Washington Science Center in Spokane’s Riverfront Park in the 1980’s. She also taught classes at Eastern Washington University, Valley City State University, and for North Dakota State University. She retired in 2002 as Professor Emeritus for Science from Valley City State University.
Eileen published a number of books including: Meteorites Found in Pennsylvania; Vanished Explorers: A Tale about the First Americans; Star Myths of Northern Cultures; Heiltsuk Northwest Coast Explorers: A Tale of the People on the Islands off Coastal British Columbia, North America; and American Explorers: A Tale about the First Americans Living on the Channel Islands of California.
She and her husband, John, travelled all over the world together which brought them great joy. In a piece titled, “Backward Bucket List” Eileen documented many of her adventures including: visiting all of the continents except Antarctica; swimming in the Pacific, Indian, and Atlantic Oceans; sailing the Rhine, the North Atlantic, Lake Erie, and the Inside Passages of the Northwest and Chile; enjoying the pyramids of Mexico and Egypt and the statues of Easter Island; meandering through Stonehenge and the Nazi death camps in Latvia; excavating a French Neanderthal site and uncovering 300 million year old fossils; strolling the Great Wall of China, and the castles of England, Scotland, and France; exploring the Smithsonian, British Museum, Hermitage, Holocaust Museum, and the Louvre; swinging on a trapeze; acting in plays; helping to dissect an elephant; and walking Bloomsday.
Eileen was a member of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Spokane and the Humanist Focus Group. She was active in local bowling leagues and had numerous hobbies including knitting, rug hooking, and stained glass. She met weekly with a tight-knit group of writers with whom she developed deep and long-lasting friendships.
Eileen was recently described by an EWU student employee who worked with her years ago as, “…a terrific lady and a wonderful boss with a great sense of humor. To this day, when I look at the stars at night, I recall what I learned while working with her at the EWU planetarium. She had a bright and funny way of teaching the names of the stars and constellations. It stuck with me all these years.” A friend who was a generation younger than Eileen described her as someone, “…who played an important role in shaping who I am today. She was such a great model as a strong, intelligent, free-thinking, generous, and fiercely independent woman.” A member of her writing group said of Eileen, “…she was a wonderful human being, a very sweet person underneath a sometimes-tough shell, and a really good writer. I learned a lot from her about her specialty area and about the people she wrote about. I already missed seeing her at our writing group, and now I just miss knowing she is in the world creating stories.”
Eileen was predeceased by her father Norman Philpott, her mother, Alma Pearl Hicks Philpott, and her grandson, Thomas Christopher Starr Mears. Eileen leaves behind her husband of 35 years, John E. Douglas and his children and grandchildren; her daughter Kimberly A. Starr and her husband LJ Da Corsi; and her granddaughter Gwyn Zoe Harvey and her fiancée, Shay Farnam.
In lieu of flowers, please consider making a gift to honor Eileen’s memory to the organization which inspired her career path:
University of Michigan Museum of Natural History
2291 Biological Sciences Building
1105 North University Avenue
Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1085