Ella can't be gone, she was larger than life. We here go back with her a long way, back to 1997.
Who could ever forget her in NYC in 1998 at the Cloisters Museum with Thomas Hoving? The great man, (and he was), former Director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, did a double take when she accosted him, as he paused to collect this thoughts on the Bury St. Edmunds Cross, helpfully offering to help him with his Latin translation which she had in hand. You could see he enjoyed that, somebody on his own brain level, he appreciated her sharpness and wit. She was afraid of nothing, irrepressible, determined, brilliant, and an absolute HOOT with a razor sharp mind, a great deal of kindness and consideration for others, and an electric effect on everybody around her. And she always asked the best and most penetrating questions of any author we ever met with.
Memories of Ella: I don't know where to even start. They are all flooding back.
How about Chicago? We arrived from all over the country to the historic Blackstone Hotel where we had reservations to find it was closed that very day, wasn't it? The local TV news media, not surprisingly, honed in on Ella as we stood in the street because Ella was articulate and always good copy and she explained to the Chicago Evening News at 6 audience how we old folks were turned out on the street. hahaha. THEN she sat with Ann (and I did not know this until yesterday ) because Ann was determined to get our money back for the banquet, and the two of them staged a Sit In, and camped in the offices of the new Blackstone Hotel owners until they refunded our banquet money. I have to feel sorry for whoever those people were, they were against an immovable force and a hurricane. We got the money. It was Ella, because she had read about it ahead of the trip, who insisted we see the Frank Lloyd Wright House and Ella who insisted we visit the Chicago Public Library there, and Ella who insisted we take an architectural tour of the city, as she had done her homework on the backgrounds of all these things. And it just made the whole trip so meaningful. You could always tell where Ella was in any crowd, the laughter and joie de vivre followed her.
England:
I will see Ella sitting and refusing to move in Hyde Park on the grass with those little white daisy like flowers for the rest of my life, because she had dreamed of that moment, and knew the history of it, and had read about Hyde Park and the Speaker's Corner for so long. My protestations about what else might be on the ground met with laughter. I wish I could find that photo. Ella at Hampton Court Palace, discovering as she ran all about that they were actually filming the movie Vanity Fair, and finding the best place to see it from an upstairs window in the clock court, you can see that scene to this day in the movie. She was constantly in motion, all over the place, and when I sat down for 5 minutes to breathe, she, spotting some poor quiet man sitting on the other end of the stone bench in peace, then plied him with so many questions and inquisitive comments that the man I thought was an introverted loner turned out to be an author apparently of some repute, and he blossomed happily. We speculated for years afterwards what famous personage he might be, but after she whirled off he, now thoroughly melted, wanted to know about us. hahahaa
On the train to London: Spying a young Chinese student she engaged, as was her wont, fully in conversation with him, getting his life story out and engaging his entire group, that's one memory I have of that trip, 3 Chinese students and two in the seats behind them leaning over talking to Ella, and she, talking animatedly away as if they were old friends. She just spread that kind of vibe. They seemed reluctant to part from us , actually, or from her, when our stop came. It was like that everywhere she went, it was her inquiring sharp mind and...I don't know what it was, and it's very hard to describe: it was the Ella Effect.
On the Tube she saw an ad for some product with the date of her birthday on it and laughed, and in showing me somehow engaged half the car who wished her a happy birthday, it was exactly like something in a movie.
Paris: that's another one I'll never forget. She was a HOOT, she, not speaking French, but undaunted, was all over the place, and if you did not answer her question, whatever it was,
immediately, if you stopped to consult a map she was off like a rocket to the first person she met to find out what she wanted to know. Of course they would answer in French, no matter, she would drag in a million other people to translate. It was like traveling with a mini United Nations, or a whirlwind, it really was, and we argued for years over the location of a subway station which had been closed, and The Man at Hampton Court, because naturally that got turned around to
my having struck up a conversation with HIM, when he and I were happily sitting, each in our own worlds until Hurricane Ella ran up and set both of us jangling. hahaha You can't think of her without laughing at her energy, her wit and her sense of fun. Sharp as a tack and saw through everything.
DC, the National Book Festival. Ella did not want to go meet David McCullough as the event was drawing to a close, so she stayed at our tent on the Mall and instead met...wasn't it Laura Bush? I'm having trouble remembering because she brushed that off and the author, too, oh ginny, for heaven's sake, it was nothing. That was Ella in a nutshell.
Electric, brilliant, funny, well versed in history, and current events, curious, kind, energetic...there won't be another one like her. Ever. For every memory I can think of 10 more flood out and there are many I don't know. As a book discussion leader she was wonderful, asking probing questions and including everybody. Right up until the last days of her life, she was leading book club discussions whether she felt up to it or not, because she wanted to help the cause here.
And how she loved Cindy. She was so proud of Cindy, and talked of her constantly. We grew to know Cindy pretty well too, from her mom, and we were pretty proud of Cindy, too, in NYC, because she was the only one the taxis would stop for, that just cemented her legend with us! Taxi drivers can always tell.
There won't ever be another Ella. We are greatly enriched who were able to know her through this medium of the internet. My sincere condolences to Cindy and her family.
