Arthur F. Ellis

Arthur Ellis, 88, of Weymouth died April 6, following a brief illness brought on by the novel coronavirus. He leaves his daughters, Catherine Ellis McDonald and her husband Francis of Wakefield, and Eileen Ellis Dumont and her husband Dennis of Weymouth Landing; his grandchildren Andrew Ellis McDonald of Brooklyn NY, Matthew Francis McDonald of Minneapolis MN, Lily Ellis Dumont and Emma Catherine Dumont, both of Weymouth Landing; his sister-in-law Catherine Pagliarulo; and his many nieces and nephews.

The youngest and last living son of Arthur Wilmot Ellis and Mabel Trent Ellis, he had six siblings: Harold Ellis, Mary Thomas, Mabel Basson, Lillian Thomas, Roseann Pettigrew, and Shirley Ellis.

Born in Boston in 1931 into a working-class family, he grew up in a time of social, political, and economic upheaval, and his lifelong, nuanced Democratic perspectives were shaped largely by a formative exposure to a country emerging from the Great Depression and entering the Second World War.

A talented visual artist, in 1949 he passed up a scholarship to Boston’s School of the Museum of Fine Arts to join the Navy, in which he served on the destroyer USS Charles S. Sperry and took part in the Hungnam Evacuation during the Korean War.

On February 27, 1954, he married Helen Price Ellis, by whose side he remained until her death in 2011.

Ferociously aware and invested in politics, he was a champion of causes big, small, and seemingly esoteric. One old friend recalled the specific time of their introduction, for example, because it occurred during the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, a nationwide uprising against the Soviet state that drew Arthur’s characteristically intense solicitude.

Working as an electrician’s apprentice in 1959, he was recruited to UNIVAC school in Philadelphia, which led to a long career in computers. He later worked for Raytheon, Honeywell, and Digital, from which he retired in 1992. For a lifelong learner with a universal respect for knowledge, it was a fitting professional career spent on the front lines of the information age.

He inhabited benign dualities that articulated the depth with which he believed the world was best experienced, unifying duty with common sense, or toughness with compassion:

He was a talented football player and passionate baseball fan who extolled Mikhail Baryshnikov’s jumps as enthusiastically as he did Ted Williams’s swing, and who could weep watching Peggy Fleming skate, or Billy Mills run.

He volunteered as a GED tutor, supported the working class, and was a fervent skeptic of populism designed to harness the great phalanx of its power. He believed in a code of ethics that meant nothing if it was not sensible, and he was equally as proud to voice the unpopular opinion, if he believed it right, as he was to have dutifully served his country.

A traditionalist who recognized the power of decorum, he removed his hat indoors, stood when women entered a room, and was an early, model progressive who endorsed feminist causes and defended the rights and dignity of transgender people.

On behalf of Amnesty International, he wrote firm, but compassionate letters to foreign governments requesting the release of political prisoners. And on behalf of himself, firmer, less compassionate letters to the coaches and general managers of local professional sports teams, requesting notably specific tactical reevaluations. In the winter of 2019, he marveled at the first photographs of a black hole, in joyful awe of a cosmic mystery made visible. He said it was exactly as he’d imagined it.

He taught us not just to read, but to revere our books. Not just to listen, but to cherish our music. Not just to look at, but to worship our art. Not just to understand science, but to be humbled by it. Not just to exhort, but to commune with athletes, to embrace the ceremony of our experience.

We’d be remiss if we didn’t note that he must be, quite literally, pleased to have made his final appearance during such a dramatic and significant moment in our modern epidemiological history, and if he could pass along his notes, he’d likely include references to the Plague of Justinian, Boccaccio’s Decameron, and yersinia pestis.

It’s somewhat trite, and not wholly accurate to say that the dead surround us or live on in memory because they leave their mark on everything and everyone they touch. While there was nothing that Arthur did not embrace, with rigor and purpose, conviction and bravery, he did not see himself in the world; his life was about discovering the world in himself. And this is how he became a part of it, how he will remain a part of it for those he leaves behind.

We cannot escape that today, we are apart. But in this fact is his final, perhaps difficult gift: A simple lesson in a time of great fear and apprehension, a reminder of life’s impermanence, that we must work, must be attentive, must always seek out new strength and enthusiasm for one another and ourselves. We must continue to pursue meaning and discovery and elation, in certainty and mystery, in the inexplicable and the unfailing.

He leaves us not alone, but solitary, and deeply, eternally connected by our indefatigable, essential, human ability to be moved.

Normally, the funeral is an opportunity for the community to gather in support of one another. Although we cannot gather together with Arthur’s family at this time, friends may still offer their support by sharing a special memory or message by clicking the link above