Lenore Rideout Cole

Lenore Rideout Cole, 97, died in Fort Worth, Texas, on September 29, 2023.

Born in Toledo, Ohio, on May 3, 1926, to Roys and Emily Rideout, she had a long, varied, and rich life.  During her high school years, which coincided with World War II, she worked in a light bulb factory.  In 1944, she graduated from The Ohio State University, and then spent her twenties working as a medical technologist first in Columbus, Ohio, and then in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. At the unusual age of 30 (for 1957), she married and then had three children, Greg, Gretchen, and Stephanie.  In 1973, the family moved to a farm in northern Fayette County, Kentucky, where Lenore thrived.  She took up gardening, taught exercise classes at the Paris (Kentucky) Library, and became the first woman elder at Antioch Christian Church. Once her children were grown, she moved back to Lexington and took on a number of causes, including working at Planned Parenthood. When the first grandchild arrived in 1994, she embraced being a grandmother and moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico, to help with Anna’s care. Over the next two decades, five more grandchildren arrived—and so she served as an in-house grandmother wherever she was needed—in Utah, Minnesota, Texas, and, finally, back in Kentucky. In her mid-90s, she retired to Texas to live with her youngest daughter and followed her own interests; she was a voracious reader, an avid jigsaw puzzle worker, a lover of chocolate and martinis, and a passionate supporter of liberal causes.

She was preceded in death by her parents, her sister (Anne Huss), and her grandson (Wyatt Cole). She is survived by her son Greg (Isabella), daughter Gretchen (Mark), and daughter Stephanie (Gregg); grandchildren, Anna Roys and Robert Domalewski, Quinn Cole, and Farley and Emily Morris.

Visitation will be at First Christian Church in Owenton, Kentucky, at 5 p.m. on October 13, 2023, with a service following at 6 p.m.  An additional celebration of life will be held during Thanksgiving week 2023 in Fort Worth, Texas.  In lieu of flowers, please send memorials to the Wyatt Cole Memorial Scholarship Fund, Planned Parenthood, or First Christian Church of Owenton, Kentucky.