Eleanor Harriet Dreyer (nee Lowe), MB, BCh, BAO (died 11 May 2019, aged 80)
Obituary provided by Mark Reid
Eleanor was one of the most popular and lively members of her medical year at Queen's. She had followed her father and her sister Kay (graduate 1961) into a career in medicine. She enjoyed her undergraduate days to the full, typified by one year on Rag Day dressing up as “flying saucer” by using two hula hoops draped over with white sheets and parading around Belfast with her good friend Helen Kirkpatrick! A fond memory of the innocent fun in the Rag Day of those times.
On qualification, she worked in the Belfast City Hospital and then in general practice after attaining a postgraduate diploma in “O and G”. She then worked with her father as a GP in the Shankill Road (he was also a Queen's graduate and the local coroner) and gave a caring and attentive service to her many patients. Around this time she met Kaare Dreyer, a Norwegian, who also qualified from Queen's at the same time in civil engineering; they fell in love and soon married in Belfast. They had three children born in Belfast, but in 1971, at the height of the 'troubles', moved to Kaare’s home in Stavanger. Both were employed in Norway’s burgeoning oil industry {The Norwegian Oil Directorate}.
Eleanor was then instrumental and innovative in setting up Stavanger’s first woman’s clinic for the local city council, and then later served as a company doctor for the Stavanger Aftenblad newspaper and other local employers until her retirement at the age of 67.
Wherever she worked she brought her strong opinions, tempered by her sense of fun, and was determined to do the best for her patients both in Belfast and in Stavanger.
She was very proud of the family including her six grandchildren, who still live also in Stavanger. However, her energies and interests went far beyond her medical work; her wide enthusiasms included golf, sewing and also keeping in touch with her Queen’s classmates, with whom she was a regular and enthusiastic attendee at the dozen class reunions over many years. She is remembered by them with great affection as a kind, thoughtful and a good friend and colleague and who feel privileged to have met and loved her in her time with them.
Back to list
Top of Page