Suzanne Perkins (Gunston)

It has been just over a year since Ellen passed, and nearly a year since our reunion. I am belatedly posting this tribute to her life (from the remarks I made at the reunion). I hope that all who are reading this are continuing to age with grace.  

We all remember Ellen as a shining child, fair, pink cheeked, sparkling blue eyes and with wisps of white hair flying about her face.  Martha Neyland was her best friend.

As a woman, she was a proud Navy wife. She was devoted to her daughter (Margery – named for her mother) and she was a loyal friend. Ellen was proud, generous and fiercely independent.

Lately, I have been thinking about time and how the years have added up, somehow to seventy-three, for most of us. This is a time when we take the measure of all that we have achieved, and we think about the people we’ve lost and the dreams that have not come true. We try to “make meaning”.

If Martha was here, she would tell you that Ellen made meaning each day that she lived. Although she was financially insecure, Ellen often went to the Goodwill store to buy socks for people who needed them and sometimes, she went to her local food bank and got food for people who were too ashamed to go there for themselves.

At her funeral, a Shaws employee rose to say that when Ellen worked there, she knew each customer by name, and when she retired, they missed her. These are not small things. These quiet acts of thoughtfulness are surely the measure of a life well lived, and if they are not, then what measure should we use?