 Rockport — Ellen was born into a jewelry manufacturing family in Attleboro, back in the days when schoolbooks referred to the city as part of the “Jewelry Belt of America”. She and her earlier-deceased older brother, Warren, spent their childhood summers at the family cottage in West Falmouth and were each graduated from Attleboro High School. Musical and linguistically talented like her mother, she played the piano and violin for school orchestra productions. She was also an organist, first for her Methodist, and later for her Episcopal church. She graduated Phi Beta Kappa class of 1942 from Wellesley College, the alma mater of both her mother and her aunt. Married soon after, she leaves behind three daughters, Marcia Storkerson and Rebecca Thompson of Sweden, Maine, and Barbara Goll of Rockport. Other surviving relatives are son-in-law, David Johnson of Sweden, Maine; grandson, Douglas Thompson and wife, Elisabeth; great-grandchildren, Owen and Alice Thompson; also grandson, Andrew Thompson and his wife, Heather, and great-granddaughter, Ronnie.As her children grew, Ellen went back to school at Middlebury College French School in Vermont from which she earned a master’s degree. She also spent several summers in France at Universities of Grenoble, Paris, Rennes as well as at a U.S. government session in Arcachon on the French Atlantic coast. She taught French for several years at Pentucket Regional High School, and for about twenty-five happy years at Manchester-by-the-Sea as head of the Foreign Language Department, attending occasional sessions in Spanish at Merrimac College and at San Miguel de Allende in Mexico. Following retirement in 1989, she continued to teach part-time as a writing advisor, and then as English teacher for several years to a delightful home-schooled pupil.
In retirement she took special time to explore the fabulous beauty of our natural surroundings, and was an avid gardener at home. She enjoyed the familial companionship of her youngest daughter and the many pets they shared over the years. She so appreciated the rich textures, colors, designs, sounds and most especially the creatures and the people of this planet, and always felt fortunate to have been part of the glorious world she lived in. |