Ellis E. Johansen

Ellis Eugene Johansen was born on January 9, 1914, the 5th child of Fred and Annie Johansen in Hay Springs, Nebraska and passed away Wednesday, September 7, 2011. (Connie, Ferd and Fred, and Horace were born before him.) He graduated from high school in Hay Springs, and went on to attend college at the University of Nebraska in Omaha, Nebraska. He married Inez Dorothy Scholes in 1937. They had five children, one dying in infancy.

He was a sales and service representative for Addressograph-Multigraph Corporation in Omaha and Sioux City before moving to Le Mars, Iowa, in 1946. He opened a printing shop called "the Le Mars Memo. In 1958 he became the job shop manager at the LeMars Daily Sentinel. In 1968 he accepted a government position as a solar observer in solar research at Sacramento Peak Observatory in Sunspot, New Mexico. In 1981, he retired and moved to Alamogordo, New Mexico. In 2007 after the death of his wife, he returned to Iowa living in LeClaire, Iowa, and then Riverview Manor in Pleasant Valley, Iowa, until his death.

He was preceded in death by his parents, four brothers -Horace, Ferd, Fred, and Willard; and one sister Thelma Carter; infant son James, and a great-grandson, Timothy S. Melvin. He is survived by three sisters (Connie Miller, Madge Dugger, and Norma Patton); and by his four children: Sylvia Stokes, Mpls MN; Marilyn Jeray, Lafayette, IN; Liz Whisler; Le Claire, IA; and Steven Johansen, Houston, TX; and 11 grandchildren,and ten great-grandchildren.