Ellen Sonia (Shufro) Orleans of Vineyard Haven died Sept. 24, 2015, the day after her 89th birthday, at Windemere Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Oak Bluffs.
Ellen was born to the late Bern and Fran Shufro on Sept. 23, 1926, in Chicago Heights, Ill., the youngest of three siblings. She graduated from Bloom Township High School in Chicago Heights in 1943. Ellen received her degree in economics from Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio, in 1948. Ellen was married to Ned Orleans in her senior year, April 2,1948, and later had a son and daughter.
In high school Ellen was an active and engaged young woman. She was in the Latin Club, was a member of the National Thespian Dramatic Honor Society and acted in a variety of plays, and was president of the National Honor Society. She was commissioner of the Bloom High School Welfare Department, and received the DAR Good Citizenship Award. Her senior superlatives included “Library Girl,” “Sweet Thing,” and “Everyone’s Friend.”
At Antioch College, Ellen became interested in labor unions. She held various co-op job positions devoted to union organizing and education, including one with the United Auto Workers (UAW) in 1945 under the supervision of Walter and Victor Reuther, prominent international labor organizers.
Following graduation in 1948, Ellen and Ned moved to Dayton, Ohio, where Ellen became a library assistant in the Oakwood Library. When Ned entered graduate school in Cambridge in 1950, Ellen went to work in the Personal Book Shops in Boston, the personnel department of Boston University, and the Baker Library of the Harvard Business School.
As Ellen and Ned’s two children grew up, she put her interests and talents to good use volunteering in the elementary and middle school libraries in Alexandria, Va., and Yellow Springs, Ohio, where the family lived. In Yellow Springs, Ellen worked for Antioch College Education Abroad and befriended a succession of students who remained in touch with her for many years. When the family moved back to Alexandria from Ohio, Ellen volunteered for handgun control and the Council for a Livable World. Ellen was later employed as the librarian and bookstore manager for the Washington Public Affairs Center at the University of Southern California (in Washington, D.C.). Ellen retired from USC after nine years, at which time she was hailed as a “tower of strength” and “a breath of gentleness” by her colleagues. Working in libraries, Ellen was devoted to helping the students, and committed to spreading her love for reading throughout her community.
Ned introduced Ellen to Martha’s Vineyard — he had been coming to the Island since he was a year old in 1925. The Vineyard became Ellen’s favorite place. In the late 1950s, Ellen and Ned bought land, and in over 40 years of cherished stays, they rented a succession of houses in various places on the Island. Eventually they purchased a cottage in Lagoon Heights next door to the one Ned’s parents had rented. In 1990, Ellen and Ned followed their longstanding dream of moving to the Island full time, and built a house on Chapde Lane in Vineyard Haven.
Happily settled in Vineyard Haven and desiring to make a contribution, Ellen volunteered at the Food Pantry, was a member of the Committee on Hunger, worked for the chamber of commerce for three years, volunteered for the Historical Society as an aid to the oral history specialist, was a registrar for the Tisbury polls, was on the Vineyard Haven Public Library board for seven years, and was chairwoman of the library board at the planning of the last expansion. Ellen started a book group and participated in discussion groups, enjoying her warm and lively social connections. She was a caring and attentive friend. And Ellen made friends wherever she went. Even in her last years at Windemere, she was loved by the staff and was usually more concerned about their welfare and the welfare of other residents than her own.
Ellen was an enthusiastic reader, interested in birds and birdsong, had a creative and astute sense of interior design, used her artistic talents to create beautiful bulletin boards that changed with season and holidays, was an avid gardener, cultivated an amazing collection of ceramic, metal, and wooden frogs, loved to travel, and had a warm (and often silly) sense of humor. She was very fond of children, and when out at a restaurant or in a crowd, could be counted on to engage an eager youngster in a game of peek-a-boo. She delighted young neighbors with her “special candy drawer” (with parental permission, of course!), a tradition she began with her son and daughter. She was devoted to her family and loved being a mother and grandmother.
Ellen is survived by her loving husband of 67 years, Ned Orleans of Vineyard Haven; her son Jonathan Orleans (Linda Liefland) and grandchildren Eliza and Rebecca of Fairfield, Conn.; daughter Jennifer Orleans (John Skrovan) and grandchildren Sarah and Matthew of Ithaca, N.Y., and sister Lois Godfrey of Northfield, Minn. Her brother Arnold Shufro predeceased her in 2000.
A memorial gathering, “Remembering Ellen,” will be held Saturday, April 2, from 2:30 to 5:30 pm at the Unitarian Universalist Society of Martha’s Vineyard, 238 Main Street, Vineyard Haven.
Donations in Ellen’s memory may be offered to the Island Food Pantry, the Southern Poverty Law Center, or a cause or charity of the donor’s choice.