Ellis as a Child and Growing up

Happy Birthday, Ellis.

Some reminisences of my big brother, Ellis

Ellis was born just short of a year after Mom and Dad were married.  He was born at home in the old Arthur Eborn home in Lanark on March 6th 1937.  Mother told me that after he was born she thought she was the luckiest and happiest woman on the face of the earth.  It was while Ellis was still an infant that Dad and Mom bought the farm over on Lanark Lane.  They began to work the farm and  Mother told me of how she had a baby buggy which she used to push Ellis over to the farm on the gravel roads so she could be near where Dad was busy working.  Then after a time they would walk home together for the evening.  This went on until they were able to move the log cabin home which was over in the field across the slough over next to the road on Lanark Lane.  I can still hear Mother talking about how Ellis would lay in the buggy and goo until he went to sleep.  This was a time of great happiness in the lives of Mom and Dad.  They were beginning a family and also having a home and a farm , which they could call their own.  The home and the farm were a project as they were quite run down and there was a tremendous amout of work to do.  A well had to be dug and yes, Dad dug our well with his own shovel.  It was a shallow well, only about twenty feet deep, but it provided water for the family for many years.  I can only imagine what a job it was to dig a well with a shovel even that deep.  The farm work and fixing up that old cabin to make it livable were not the only challenges.  Starting a family there on that dusty knoll was a challenge in and of itself.  I think Dad was especially glad that their first child was a boy.  Heaven knows, they needed another set of hands to do all of the work.  Ellis grew up in that environment and it was at a very young age that he was doing a lot to help out around the farm.  I know Dad was glad to have a little man around partly for the company and partly for the work he could do. Ellis learned to drive a team of horses on the plow and the rake and other farm implements.  He learned to herd and milk cows and to feed calves, pigs and chickens.  He was a very good worker and very responsible for his age.  He was a very good looking child.  In fact, he was the best looking kid in the whole family for over three years.  Then I came along and he had to relenquish that title.  Ha, Ha,  Actually, in my eyes, Ellis was such a big, strong boy and there was nothing that he couldn't do.  I grew up kind of in his shadow because he was older, bigger, stronger, smarter, and maybe he was really even better looking.  Anyway, he was my big brother and I looked up to him.

This is a picture of Ellis as an infant.  It was kept in Grandma's Book of Rememberance.

This is Ellis when he was a young child, about three or four years old. Mom used that old curling iron on us all, I think.  He really was cute, now that I take a little closer look. It's not hard to see why Mom and Dad were so happy with their firstborn son.

Ellis attended school for the first two years in the Lanark School.  He has written elsewhere about this.  Later he went to Paris to Emerson Elementary School through the eigth grade.  He was elected as the Studentbody President of the school when he was an Eightgrader.  Mom and Dad were very proud of their son.

He attended high school in Paris at Fielding High School.  He was active in spoorts and played basketball on the High School team.  I remember one big game he played in.  It was against Montpelier High School.  They were the biggest of rivals and as I recall, the score was 62-50.  The Fielding Spartans defeated the highly favored Montpelier team at the Fielding High School Gymansium.  I can still see, in my minds eye, the gym filled to overflowing with wildly screaming high school  basketball fans.  These were fun memories for everyone who attended.

Ellis graduated from Fielding High School in 1955 and then attended Utah State Agricultural College in Logan that fall.  He was also a graduate of the LDS Seminary program.

Mom used to call us a stairway in this picture.  It was taken before Mark was born, but about the time
Ellis was a Junior in High School.  One can easily see why we felt, at times, we were in his shadow, he was the first and he was the bigest and the strongest. What's more he never let us forget it.

When Ellis was tewnty he married his sweetheart, Jeannine Armitage, from Montpelier in the Idaho Falls Temple.  They moved to Logan where they started a family and Ellis continued his education at Utah State.

At Utah State Ellis majored in geology and also was involved in the Air Force ROTC program.  Upon graduation he was commissioned a Second Leutenant and began flight training as a navigator.  This picture was taken by Mom and Dad when they went by train to visit Ellis and Jeannine where he was stationed in Texas. Here they are with their first two kids.  Gregory and Jeanne were the custest kids I think I had ever seen.  Anyway, I was a proud uncle.

Here are Ellis' children, Gregory, Jeanne, Lori Lynn, and Jonathan.  Christopher had not yet been born.

Cute kids!!

by Bart