Eleanor Dashiell Hoaglan

Eleanor Corki Hoaglan of Rochester, MN died at Samaritan Bethany Home on Eighth on Thursday, June 5, 2014. She was born Eleanor Dashiell Gatch on July 11, 1920, in Annapolis, MD, into a navy family, the daughter of Nancy Dashiell and Thomas Leigh Gatch. During the Second World War her father was Captain of the Battleship South Dakota. Her first husband, Lt. John P. Armstrong, served on the battleship and they were married in 1942. Corki as she was known by her friends and family became a dancer with an emphasis on flamenco which she later taught at her dance studio in town. Prior to marriage she toured with the musical I Married an Angel and performed in supper clubs in Washington, D.C. And New York City. Her first husband died in an aviation accident in 1943, and her first child was born in 1944. Following her sister Nancy Gatch Svien, wife of Mayo Clinic neurosurgeon Hendrik Svien, to Rochester, she met and married homebuilder Herschel Hoaglan in 1952. Their son was born at the end of that year. In addition to teaching ballet for many years at her home studio, Corki choreographed dances for a number of Rochester Civic Theater musicals, including West Side Story and My Fair Lady for which she received the Sadie Award. She is survived by daughter, Jacklyn Armstrong Carter (T. H. Carter) of Stewart Manor, NY, and son, Hersh F. Hoaglan (Sally Book) of Rochester. She has four grandsons, Hersh T. Hoaglan, Benjamin Carter, Eric Hoaglan and Jonathan Carter. She has three great-grandchildren.