Who was Eleanor Rigby?

To take a slightly different turn here, there is news that the woman featured in the classic Beatles tune was a real person, and not a figure from Paul McCartney's imagination. A payroll sheet from a Liverpool hospital that McCartney donated to charity was to be auctioned at Sotheby's auction today (November 27). According to this report, the sheet was signed by a hospital maid, "E Rigby," and is said to be the same person buried in 1939 in the graveyard next to the church where McCartney and John Lennon met.