Ellen J. Lucas

A savvy, level-headed, Brooklyn girl, Ellen was the eldest of three sisters. In her youth, she was an avid scholar, her mother's right hand, a long-distance swimmer, and a prolific letter writer. Her self-discipline drove her to graduate high school and college in only six years. During these years, she practiced piano and played sax and clarinet in marching bands.

After graduation, she dutifully taught third and fourth grade English and band at public schools in Florida and New Mexico and lived a Spartan lifestyle so she could subsidize her youngest sister Ivy May's graduate studies at a New York music conservatory.

Like her father, an officer with Norfolk & Western Railroad, who died when she was very young, Ellen was a determined, strong-willed but just leader, manager, advisor, and all-round problem solver.

Related to Emily Dickinson, Louisa May Alcott, Elihu Root, and Horatio Alger, Ellen believed personal success was her individual responsibility and opportunity to define and achieve through study and hark work.

Ellen's active early-to-middle-adult years included a variety of successive responsibilities: managing a citrus packing and shipping operation, a dental office, a political campaign, and her only son John, who survives her.

Creatively blessed with an artistic sense of design and order, Ellen painted dozens of oils, knitted hundreds of afghans, sweaters, and baby blankets as gifts for friends and strangers, and wrote thousands of personal letters, which she believed deserved her precise, cursive penmanship. She loved to read, and she preferred non-fiction books about politics, economics, and theology.

Her foresight and precision revealed themselves in her home appointments: once placed, everything stayed where she put it because there was no better, more functional place for anything other than the one she selected. She set things right the first time.

Ellen was an amazing mentor for her friends and family. She objectively analyzed evidence, reasons, and arguments and considered intentions and outcomes before providing wise judgments and appropriate counsel. She listened well but questioned often, evaluated carefully, and advised sagaciously.

Due to her independence, determination, and fearlessness, Ellen loved adventure and travel. When he was 12 and she was in her 50s, she took John on the road to expand his worldview for a year. They travelled and lived in Malta, Italy, Greece, Austria, and Israel. Later, in her 70s, she took over 125 trips with Randy throughout more than 20 states, Mexico, and Canada. Randy memorialized these trips for her in more than 70 scrapbooks.

Prior to John's birth, Ellen accepted Jesus Christ as her personal Savior. Reading the Bible cover to cover each year for 50 years, she steadfastly persevered in her faith and hope in God's promise, plan, and purpose for her life. A member of Arizona Community Church since 1998, Ellen had many friends in the In-Joy and Lighthouse classes.

Funeral services will celebrate her life from 4-7 PM, Thursday, June 29 at Green Acres Mortuary & Cemetery , 401 N. Hayden Rd, Scottsdale, where she will be near her dear Randy, her husband for 50 years.

Memories and condolences may be shared at greenacresmortuary.net, which will be preserved as part of a celebratory book about Ellen's life.