Irene S. Eldridge, 88, of Pinellas Park, Florida passed away Saturday, January24, 2015. She was born August 29, 1926 in the small town of Zaporizhzha, Ukraine, at that time Russia. She had a tumultuous life from the beginning. Her father dying when she was very young left only her sister and mother. This was the time in the Ukraine of the Great Famine when millions died of starvation. She and her sister were passed between relatives and orphanages while her mother worked. When WW II came and the Germans were invading Russia, she was taken by the Germans at the age of 14 and sent to Germany in a box car with thousands of other Ukrainians and used as slave labor in Germany. She was there until the end of the war, being liberated by American soldiers, one of them being James W. Eldridge, who would become her husband for 60 years until his death in 2008. She came to the U.S. as a war bride and from here her life changed . Happily married and having three children, the family lived in Alabama, Tennessee and Indiana. She lived in Griffith, Indiana for forty years. When her husband James retired they moved to Pinellas Park, Florida and continued to enjoy the winter sunshine of Florida and the pleasant summers in Indiana until her passing. She is survived by her three children, Alice Sue Lanning (Jim) of Merrillville, Indiana; James Ronald Eldridge (Fran) of Pearl River, Louisiana; Douglas Earl Eldridge of Pinellas Park, Florida. She is the loving grandmother of Shelley, April, Becky, Jimmy, Dougie, Kelly, Jamie and Leslie; loving great grandmother of Olivia, Alexis, Rose and Colton. The family will receive friends at the funeral home Saturday, January 31 from 10:30 until service time at 11:30 A.M. with interment to follow at Memorial Park Cemetery.