Marilyn Elliott

Elliott educates in late husband’s name

Marilyn Elliott of Searcy lost her husband, Robert, to suicide in 2001. In the 14 years since his death, she has learned more about depression, shared her insights and helped start the Dr. Robert E. Elliott Foundation to educate the public about depression.
Marilyn Elliott of Searcy lost her husband, Robert, to suicide in 2001. In the 14 years since his death, she has learned more about depression, shared her insights and helped start the Dr. Robert E. Elliott Foundation to educate the public about depression.

If adversity is a real test of someone’s character, the past 14 years have been a testament to Marilyn Elliott’s character. She lost her husband, Robert, to suicide in 2001. Since his death, Elliott has learned more about depression, shared her insights and helped start the Dr. Robert E. Elliott Foundation to further educate the public about depression.

Elliott was raised in Little Rock and graduated from Little Rock Central High School in 1958, giving her a front-row seat to the historical integration involving the Little Rock Nine.

“For those who were integrated, it was a tough year,” she said. “I played softball with [Minnijean Brown, now Minniejean Brown-Trickey, who was one of the Little Rock Nine]. I was the captain. She was the last one out there, and I had to choose her — I wanted to. I felt bad no one else wanted to play with her. She was the best player I ever had.”

After graduation, Elliott went to Arkansas Polytechnic College, now known as Arkansas Tech University, in Russellville, where she majored in business. She said she thought about being a nurse, but she didn’t think she would be able to handle some of the things nurses have to deal with on a regular basis.

“When I had kids later on, I threw up whenever they threw up,” she said. “I’d have to call Robert. He thought I was just making it up.”

Elliott said she and a friend moved to New Orleans to be secretaries after they finished school at Arkansas Tech. While in New Orleans, Elliott had to have her appendix removed, and she returned to Little Rock to recover. Her best friend was going to a dance, and her date’s roommate asked Elliott to go with him. That man was Robert, and Elliott said it did not take her long to fall in love.

“I went back [to New Orleans] and resigned,” she said. “I liked Robert.”

The two married in 1963. Robert did his internship and residency at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences. Elliott said she would have liked to have gone somewhere else for a while, but Robert loved Arkansas.

“Everybody was getting some place in Florida or some place like that,” she said. “He just said, ‘No, I want to stay at home.’”

Elliott did, however, get a chance to move out of state for a short time. Robert served two years in the Navy, and they were stationed in Pensacola, Florida. Still, after those years, Robert wanted to return to his hometown of Searcy.

“I wanted to take that opportunity to live somewhere else,” Elliott said. “He said, ‘I’m going back to God’s country.’ I had visited Searcy, but at that time it was 10,000 or 8,000 people, and I couldn’t understand why it was God’s country. But we came back to God’s country, and I’m glad we did.”

After moving to Searcy in the mid-1970s, Robert and his partner, Dr. John Bell, were the only radiologists in Searcy at the time, and they worked out of both Central Arkansas Hospital and White County Memorial Hospital in Searcy. Elliott worked in the business office of her husband’s practice in transcribing and billing.

The Elliotts’ children — Leigh Anne and Mark — were 2 and 4 years old when the family moved to Searcy. Elliott said her job in Robert’s business office was flexible, and she was able to take care of the kids when she was needed.

Robert loved his work, Elliott said. He was passionate about making sure his patients got all of the information they needed, and Elliott still runs into people when she is out who tell her they would not be alive today if it wasn’t for her husband.

“He got into mammography and was really interested in that,” she said. “He never let a patient go home until they had a diagnosis. He always told them he wouldn’t want me to have to go home without being diagnosed.”

His dedication to his work masked a serious issue, though. Elliott said she knew he worked a lot, and now she knows that could have been an indicator of his depression.

“If you read about depression, you know there are warning signs,” she said. “But for Robert to work late into the night was normal. He didn’t have a real great sleep pattern anyway, and he’d be up early telling me goodbye at 5:30 in the morning to get to work.”

Elliott said her husband did not eat properly, either, but it still did not strike her as something to be concerned about. When he started to fall deeper into depression, Elliott started to take notice of her husband’s odd behavior.

“When he got really sick, I’d get up in the middle of the night, and he’d be sitting in his chair just staring out into the night,” she said. “That’s when I called his partner, and Dr. Bell came over. We decided at that point that he needed to go see a psychiatrist.”

Robert was diagnosed with clinical depression. Elliott said her husband had always been taught to be strong and take care of things on his own, and he did not like to take medicine.

“When they started giving him his medicine, he didn’t want to take it,” she said. “He’d take it and get better and then would get off of it. A couple weeks out, he’d spiral down and get depressed again.”

Robert died on January 13, 2001. Since then, Elliott has been learning more about how depression is a disease, how depression can be treated and the stigmas attached to the disease.

“It’s not a curable disease, but it’s treatable,” she said. “The shame and the peer pressure that people have put on this disease are what we are trying to turn around and change. It’s not anything to be ashamed of.”

One year after Robert died, the Dr. Robert E. Elliott Foundation was started. Elliott said the community has fully embraced the foundation, and she has been encouraged by the support it has received.

On Saturday, the foundation will sponsor the 2015 Stride to Prevent Suicide 5K and Fun Run in Spring Park. The race will begin at 9 a.m. Registration for the race is $25 for adults and $15 for children, and the proceeds of the race will go to the foundation’s resources and outreach programs. For more information on the race, visit www.elliottfoundation.com.

When she’s not doing work with the foundation, Elliott spends her time with her grandchildren, at her church and as a volunteer with the CARTI Auxiliary. Her husband was instrumental in bringing the Central Arkansas Radiation Therapy Institute to Searcy — Elliott said he didn’t like that his patients had to go to Little Rock for cancer treatments — and she likes to honor him with service to the organization.

“Robert was a very giving person,” she said. “He was very loving and kind. He would be proud that we’ve ventured on and continue to do things in his memory.”

Staff writer Angela Spencer can be reached at (501) 244-4307 or aspencer@arkansasonline.com.

Upcoming Events