Ebel, Elaine Tonge

Elaine Tonge Ebel, of Christiansburg, died Sunday, March 10, 2013, after a hip operation in Blacksburg. Her heart began to fail during the operation. Mrs. Ebel, the wife of Dr. Roland H. Ebel, retired New Orleans Tulane University professor, was born in Port Huron, Mich. in 1928. After high school she graduated from Houghton College, Houghton, N.Y. and taught elementary school in Almont, Mich. She later did graduate work in New Testament at the Wheaton College graduate school and seminary. There she met and married Roland Ebel who was pursuing graduate work in Political Science at Michigan State University. From there she moved to Kalamazoo, Mich., where her husband began teaching at Western Michigan University. She is survived by two sons, Daniel, of Kansas City, Mo. and James, of Blacksburg; and four grandchildren, Rachel, Ruth, Andrew and Abigail. A dynamic personality, she was sought out as a speaker before such groups as Woman’s Aglow, the Intervarsity Christian Fellowship, the Tulane Christian Medical Association and in women’s adult bible classes in her Presbyterian Church. Her greatest passion in life was to make the saving work of Jesus Christ clear to anybody who came across her path. Funeral services will be conducted 2 p.m. Friday, March 15, 2013, in the McCoy Funeral Home Chapel. Interment will follow in the Memorial Gardens of New River Valley Blacksburg. The family will receive friends from 1 p.m. until service time on Friday at McCoy Funeral Home, 150 Country Club Drive SW, Blacksburg.