Francis, Eleanor Meyers; Figures in Education for Seniors, Music

Francis A. Meyers, who encouraged continuing education for senior citizens, and his wife, Eleanor, have died in an automobile crash. He was 82 and she was 78.

The fatal accident occurred Sunday when the automobile of an alleged drunk driver pushed their car over the center divider of the Riverside Freeway. The couple, who had been married for 56 years, were driving home to Silver Lake from a conference of the Assn. for Learning in Retirement Organizations, where Francis Meyers had spoken.

Meyers was the founder and a former president of the organization, a national association of retirement learning programs on university and college campuses. He wrote the organization’s guidelines for the establishment and curricula of similar plans across the country.

He had also worked with and served as pioneering president of UCLA Extension’s Perpetual Learning and Teaching Organization, known as the PLATO Society, one of the nation’s first retiree learning organizations.

“It kept me alive, frankly,” Meyers told The Times in 1994. “It has kept my mind going. I am constantly studying, reading, discussing and teaching, and so forth.”

Meyers began working with senior citizens’ learning groups only after he retired from the business world by selling his family jewelry manufacturing business. The company, J.A. Meyers & Co., was started by his parents in 1912 and originally stood downtown on what is now the site of the Los Angeles Convention Center.

A violinist educated at the Eastman School of Music and UCLA, Meyers taught band and orchestra in Los Angeles city schools and was conductor of musicals performed by the Los Angeles Youth Theater.

He performed with the Los Angeles Doctors Symphony Orchestra and the Pollak String Quartet.

A cellist, Eleanor Meyers also performed with the Los Angeles Doctors Symphony Orchestra and with the Temple Emanuel Chamber Symphony.

She, too, had worked for the jewelry manufacturer and had served as company president. After her retirement, she became active in the learning groups.

The couple endowed a chamber music scholarship at the UCLA School of Music.

They are survived by three daughters, Judy Meyers Greene of Berkeley, and Sharon Meyers Horne and Terry Meyers Gibbins of Oakland; a foster daughter, Beverly Gorman of Olympia, Wash., and six granddaughters.

The family has asked that memorial donations be made to the UCLA Foundation--PLATO Society, UCLA Extension, Room 745C, 10995 Le Conte Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90024.