Eulalie S. Bobbitt is not famous. There's no biographical information about her in Norfolk's library. Despite her nearly 30 years of work in Norfolk, she was never quoted in the newspaper. Yet her name adorns a city apartment complex and an annual Norfolk Redevelopment and Housing Authority award.
It's because Bobbitt worked nearly her entire professional life to advance the causes of low-income senior citizens.
A native of Jonesboro, N.C., she started work at the authority in 1943 as a social services specialist, a job she did for nearly 30 years, interrupted only by a stint of civil service during World War II in Guam and Okinawa.
In 1981, the authority's then-director David Rice called her the driving force behind its senior-citizen programs. She organized gardening groups, art classes and social organizations at a time when seniors were not a government priority.
In the early 1970s, the authority decided to build housing specifically for older adults with limited incomes. The buildings include more handicapped-accessible units and provide additional safety features.
The last of four complexes built under that program, an 84-unit, three-story brick apartment building tucked away on Poplar Hall Road behind The Gallery at Military Circle, was named for Bobbitt. During the dedication of the building in 1981, Rice said the complex reflected Bobbitt's belief that the city's poorest senior citizens should have active lives.
Today, Bobbitt's name still graces the outside of the building and an annual award for community service that the authority gives to an elderly resident each year.
With the addition of the Franklin Arms apartments in 2003, Norfolk now has five public housing complexes for seniors. Bobbitt, who also was active in the National Garden Club and served on the Planned Parenthood Board, never lived to see any of them. She died weeks after her retirement, in 1974, at age 63.
Meghan Hoyer, (757) 446-2293, meghan.hoyer@pilotonline.com
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