Don's father Ellis was the youngest of Louis and Clemance's children. He was born November 16, 1906. He left the family home to attend Louisiana State University around 1924 or 1925. He transferred to Tulane University in 1926 but left in the fall of 1927. He remained an ardent supporter of Tulane for the rest of his life. Much of my material about his life came from the archivist at Tulane, Ann Smith Case. As far as I know he was the first in the family to attend a university.
Ellis seems to have moved several times between 1928 and 1935 because of several records placing in New Orleans and Gramercy during that period.
Don's mother Janie Lee DaSilva was born in New Orleans September 28, 1905. She received training as a teacher and taught in the New Orleans schools for about 10 years before their marriage.
While it is not know exactly how they met, they both appear in the society pages of the local New Orleans newspaper as attending the same events during the five years before their marriage. Whether they met there or were dating is not clear because who came with whom is not mentioned. After the marriage Janie had to quit teaching because it was illegal for married women to teach (they took away men's jobs, or so the state said).
It is not exactly certain when they moved to Galveston, Texas because of Ellis's job. However, they appear in the 1940 census there and had moved back to New Orleans before Don was born in 1943.
After World War II, Ellis opened a photography studio. Apparently, it was not as successful as hoped, because by 1953 Ellis became a car salesman and Janie returned to teaching in the Jefferson Parish school in the New community of Bridge City at the southern (western) approach to the Huey Long Bridge across the Mississippi River..
Janie continued teaching until the summer of 1963 or 1964 when she suffered her first stroke. She had her third stroke in the fall of 1969, remained comatose after that until her death on January 4, 1970.
After Janie's death, Ellis sold the family home in New Orleans and moved to the camp in Mississippi he had bought a few years before. He spent his last days fishing and hunting during the day and painting at night. He also visited Don in California in February 1970 and it was obvious he was not well. We considered meeting in Denver later in the year, but it never happened.
Apparently on November 3, 1970, Ellis had some sort of heart problem. Despite this, he drove with his dogs the 200 miles to his daughter's home in Lafayette, LA. He was immediately taken to a hospital where he soon died.
After his death we discovered a book of charcoal drawings and about 15 oil paintings. Don and his sister gave several of the paintings to family members and divided the remainder. The charcoals and Don's share of the oils are hanging in his home in California. The favorite is a small one considered his self-portrait even though it does not show his face. It is of a fisherman wearing a red checkered hunting shirt and sitting on a cooler in his boat. His boat is in the marsh near a clump of reeds. Ellis always said that this was the place where his favorite, the redfish, lived.
There is written a much longer story of his life based on the records of Tulane and based on newspaper articles and advertising about him. This longer account is available to close family members from Don.
