Mary Ellis

My mother was the second of five children born to Bertha and Ernest Phillips. She had three brothers John, Ed, and Chester and one sister Bessie. Bessie and Ed are the only two remaining siblings. My mother married her sweetheart at 16. She went on to have two children with Jerry Dotson. My brother Gary Dotson and my sister Sheri. At 25 my mother was a widow and left to raise my siblings on her own with the help of my grandparents. I was born five years later when she was 30. My mother met my step father in 1970 and they were together for 26 years. With meeting Jude we now had five more siblings. I was blessed with another sister Linda, and four more brothers…Russ, Don, Mike and my sweet brother Patrick. My parents retired in 1988 to a town of 250 people called Ukiah, Oregon. They lived there together until Jude passed away in 1996. My mother continued to live in Ukiah, and was part of the City council and volunteer fire fighters of the town. She was active in her church and busy coming back and forth to Portland. In 1999, we all took a trip to Disneyland together to celebrate my daughter Elise’s tenth birthday. We had a lot of fun and will always remember the trip. We also had several visits to her home in Ukiah. As time went by my mother moved in with my husband and I and our daughter in Portland. She moved in with us in 2004 and lived with us up until she went in the hospital. She was very active in the community doing her two bunco groups, her SAT club on Mondays, her lunches on Wednesdays, and her bingo on alternate Thursdays. She also was very active in her church. I loved that she had so many things to keep her busy and that is why it was so hard to see her slow down the last year of her life and when she went into the hospital we found out that she had congestive heart failure. She was really trying hard to keep going but her heart was just to weak. I will miss her everyday and not having her in our home makes it very different and I am so grateful that I had the time that I did to build memories with my mom. I know that I will miss our adventures whether it was going out for lunch or dinner or our favorite breakfast place….or our hours of antiquing, I will miss them all. I miss you so much mom.