By Mary Thurwachter
HYPOLUXO ISLAND — Narine Ebersold, a good, kind and friendly woman cherished by her children and admired by neighbors and friends, died on Aug. 26 at Palm Garden of West Palm Beach. She was 95.Mrs. Ebersold and her late husband, David Ebersold, raised their family on Hypoluxo Island, where they’d moved in 1946 from Jacksonville.
The island was a jungle back then with only a handful of homes and a few human settlers, she told The Coastal Star in 2014. They didn’t have a car and they rode bicycles everywhere, including to West Palm Beach where she worked for the phone company.
“My dad would ride with her to work and then go to meet her on her way home,” said their daughter Sandy Ebersold. “Mom and Dad had a longtime romance. He’d always draw a heart with their names in it. He’d take a picture of them and put his initials and hers on the back inside a heart. She was a beauty and she loved Dad.”
Mrs. Ebersold was born on Oct. 26, 1926, in Arkansas — the daughter of James Myers and Daisy Henderson — but moved to Florida when she was 6 months old, first to Haines City, then to Jacksonville. As a teenager, she worked at a Jacksonville drive-in. That’s where she met her future husband.
“He was a lifeguard at the beach,” she told The Coastal Star in the 2014 story. “In those days, people were kind of bashful and I didn’t even know he liked me, but he went home and told his brother he met this good-looking girl.”
The couple began dating and married a few years later. Mr. Ebersold was a prominent builder who constructed many of the homes on the island. When he died in 2006, they had been married for 61 years.
“She was very sweet, a good mother and she was kind,” said Sandy Ebersold, the oldest of the couple’s four children. “She loved to bake chocolate cake and always had ice cream in the freezer. Everybody loved her.
“She was very social and always had lots of visitors at the nursing home. She loved people and she was extraordinarily beautiful.”
Mrs. Ebersold was “no helicopter mom,” her daughter said. “We kind of did our own thing. We’d be on our bicycles all day long and take off. We went in the woods and climbed up those trees. We fished and camped and lived for a few years on a sailboat my dad bought.”
Mrs. Ebersold loved to sing, especially music from the 1940s. She even won a talent contest at Palm Garden for her singing. Her favorite song was I’ll Be Loving You Always.
Her neighbors enjoyed spending time with her.
“My friendship with Narine Ebersold began over 23 years ago when she welcomed my family to Hypoluxo Island,” said Michelle Donahue, president of the Hypoluxo Island Property Owners Association. “She was such a sweet lady, never complained and always made people feel warm and welcomed. I’ll forever cherish our evening visits on her front porch sharing the history of her time on the island and the stories of her life and family legacy.”
Mrs. Ebersold was preceded in death by her parents, her husband, her sister Armastine Culpepper and sister-in-law Barbara Ebersold.
She is survived by her children — Sandy, Davie (Lynne), Terri and Don; her sister, Coy Johnson; six grandchildren; and many friends.
Arrangements are pending and are being handled by Dorsey-E. Earl Smith Memory Gardens Funeral Home. If people wish to make a donation in her memory, her children suggest the Humane Society of ASPCA. “Mom loved her kitties, and they loved her,” Sandy Ebersold said.
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