Eleanore (Ellie) Elizabeth Walworth

The eldest daughter of immigrant parents from Hungary, she grew up in a small house with her 6 other siblings, working on the family farm. She graduated from Muskegon High School and she initially attended community college. However, Ellie had her sights on both University of Michigan and a particularly dashing engineering student. So the story goes, she parked herself across from Marv in the commons area, and next thing they were bar hopping through their first date. Together, they went to U of M on scholarship and were married in 1962.

After earning her degree in education, Ellie taught elementary school until their first daughter came along, who was then followed by twins and one more daughter in the span of 3 years. To this day, we don’t know how she found sanity with that many kids in diapers. What we do know is that she put her teaching career on hold and dove headfirst into raising her family, dedicating herself to her kids’ education and well-being.

No story about Ellie as a mother would be complete without including how she used food as pharmacy. As a young mom, she single-handedly ended the mounting financial drain of weekly trips to the pediatrician with all the typical illnesses befalling the petri dishes we lovingly refer to as babies and toddlers. Ellie turned to a whole food, nearly plant-based diet which was considered very fringe, woo-woo medicine at the time. In short, Ellie was a closet hippy. She made her own whole wheat bread, granola, cultured her own yogurt, and grew her own sprouts. The dinner table was always graced first by a massive green salad (her perennial signature dish) before anyone could move onto the next course. Three months after changing her family’s diet, the pediatrician’s office was now calling Ellie wondering where we all went. So that worked out.

Other than the weird food growing up, as their mother, her kids remember her as their greatest advocate and comforter. Ellie could be counted on to shine a light on our goodness. She would see when we were struggling and quietly would find help for us behind the scenes. She would rescue you when you desperately needed it or simply let you sit on her lap when you felt really down, even at 18 years old. She occasionally looked the other way when you ditched class because she thought you needed a break. She also had the distasteful task of hounding us to do our chores, practice the piano and do our homework. While none of us kids went on to be concert pianist, we all appreciate the music literacy she gave us, our interest in academics and all of us being at least 7 out of 10 tidy (also 7 out of 10 uncoordinated – we did sports on our own and that was okay). Thank you, Mom, for so many memories of your funny stories at dinner, the wonderful production you turned our birthdays and holidays into, doing the polka in the kitchen, reading Anne of Green Gables to us during the summer. Finding and sharing immense joy in the smallest things was Mom’s super power.

Ellie was also a delightful aunt. It made her so happy to see her 4 children pile out of the VW bus they’d been canned in for a week getting to Michigan. She’d watch the fun start with their cousins and always kept herself in the midst of games and laughter. Ellie felt travel in general was part of education. Her children have many fond memories of places like Yellowstone (way before the Netflix series), the Florida ocean and the Oregon coast with all the different scents, light, sensations, food and people. Included also were memories of the reliably unreliable VW bus. It broke down on every vacation, sometimes spectacularly so: like when her husband had to pour gas into the carburetor in the back of the bus while Ellie drove it across Idaho with the suitcases piled on atop her four towheaded kids. Words like “push rod”, “vapor lock” and “fuel pump” were a regular part of a family vacation. “Broken axle” made the list somewhere around Spearfish, South Dakota. Did this deter Ellie from planning another cross country adventure year after year (without the help of the interwebs or even cell phones)? Never! Her kids just remember all the fun. Thanks Mom.

She crushed it as a grandmother. Her grandkids recount memories of “camp at Granny’s” with chocolate under their pillow, warmed up bath towels, the most wonderful slippers, picnics in the park with sandwiches in wax paper, cold milk in mason jars (and of course some carrots). She was a total prankster, staging rubber snakes and critters in the bathroom. The kids loved it. When the grandkids grew up, the door was always open to them with Granny meeting them with a big smile, a perfectly made bed and PJ’s to take a nap in between their work shifts. Ellie loved her grandkids and her great grandkids beyond belief. Her son-in-law remarked he’d never seen anybody with such a genuine, heartfelt smile of joy when she was around the kids.

Ellie was also a great mother-in-law. She welcomed all new family members and made sure they felt overwhelmingly loved, accepted and comfortable. They felt when they talked to her that she really did listen. She always was very encouraging, their steadfast cheerleader and made them feel like they were the best at what they did whether that was running a business or baking banana bread. Ellie gave guidance, examples of spirituality and commitment to her faith, while letting everyone else find their own. She was about keeping everyone together no matter what the circumstance.

Ellie in her career was defined by her tireless dedication to teaching and giving to others. When her children were grown, she returned to teaching 2nd grade, feeling that she could make the most impact on children at this particularly critical stage of reading and writing development. She eventually earned her masters degree in education at Western State College in Gunnison, CO. As a teacher (and same as a mother), she was funny but firm, creative but kept things structured. She was a wonderful teacher. Many, many of her students returned as adults to thank her.

Ellie was clearly driven by a call to deliver comfort and a better future to any suffering human being, related or not. She walked the talk of her faith. She accomplished this during her long, loving partnership with her husband, Marv. They funded the construction of villages and schools for the desperately poor in Jamaica. She and Marv funded projects in Guatemala too and many clean water projects not to mention helping local families here in the Grand Valley. They were personally invested in the people they helped. She and Marv visited Jamaica, and Ellie made a point of connecting to individual villagers. She visited the schools they built, classrooms and teachers and students. We found a photo album in Mom’s closet full of classroom pictures of those teachers’ classrooms, bulletin boards, teaching charts, and students. She was genuinely interested in and cared about each teacher, parent and child in and outside the classroom.

If you were around Ellie, you knew three things about her for sure: she loved God, her husband, and family. She poured her love into us, everyone around us and into those who will never know her name.

Mom, we love you for all you were.

She is survived by her husband Marv Sr, children Julie Diers (nee Walworth), Marvin Walworth Jr, Jill Walworth, her grandchildren Patrick, Abby and Lucas Diers, Amanda Nielsen (nee Walworth), Mike Walworth, Katy Gueretta (nee Mueller), Emma Mueller and her great grandchildren, Finley and Beckett Diers, Poppy Diers, Kian and Ethan Nielsen as well as her sisters Mary Gillhespie and Joanne Leech, and brothers Bob and Tommy Ferencsik. Preceded in death by her daughter, Anne Mueller (nee Walworth), as well as her brothers Eugene and Donald Ferencsik.

A rosary service for Eleanore will be held Thursday, April 4, 2024 at 7:00 PM at Callahan-Edfast Mortuary & Crematory, 2515 Patterson Rd., Grand Junction, Colorado 81505. A mass of christian burial will occur Friday, April 5, 2024 at 11:00 AM at Immaculate Heart of Mary Church, 790 26 1/2 Rd., Grand Junction, Colorado 81506. A burial will occur Friday, April 5, 2024 at 2:30 PM at Palisade City Cemetery, 3529 Front St., Palisade, CO 81526.