Betty Jean Ellis, 76
Sept. 18, 1933 to March 26, 2010
Betty Jean Ellis, 76, of Murray, passed away March 26, 2010. She was born in Glendale, Calif., to John and Anna Matz.
She worked in her parents printing shop printing business cards and announcements until meeting a young cowboy at a horse show in 1955. She and Frank Ellis were soon married in 1956. Frank traveled the rodeo circuit as a rodeo clown during the summer months taking his young family on the road with him. Betty forever by his side always the assistant in clown acts. Spending hours upon hours sewing and stuffing Frank’s Bull-Fighting dummies back together after each performance.
When not on the road, Betty worked as an operator for Ma Bell. Then later, when daughter Debbie started school, she stayed home to raise their daughter, working for Farmers Insurance as a filing agent. Frank went on the road one more season, and then moved his small family from Sylmar, Calif., to the rural farming community of Aqua Dulce, Calif., in 1963. There the family fanned and raised livestock.
Betty got a job in Saugus, working at Watcher Feed Store, where she worked for 11 years until the family moved to North Idaho in June 1974, where they lived on the Triple R Ranch at the north end of Hayden Lake. Frank a ranch hand, and Betty getting a job at the local feed store in Hayden Lake, working at Marsh-Miller Farm & Garden for partners Pete Marsh and Gordon Miller until the partnership broke up. Betty continued working for Gordon Miller at the new Miller Farm & Garden located in the big Red Barn on Government Way till it closed.
She then worked for a time at Stoneridge in collections, but this job didn’t agree with Betty. She was then fortunate and landed a job that agreed with her and that she enjoyed, where she worked for several years scaling trucks for Cd’A Asphalt in Rathdrum, and then making the move to Interstate Asphalt scaling trucks until she retired six years ago. At which time she and Frank took up gold prospecting. After the passing of her Beloved Husband Frank, she moved with daughter Debbie from Athol to Murray.
Betty was preceded into the next life by her father, John; mother Anna; son-in-law Mickey and husband Frank. Daughter Debra Griffiths of Murray survives her.
There will be no services, although Betty’s daughter requests that should you choose, a donation in Betty’s name may be made to Hospice of North Idaho in Hayden or Mountain Valley Care Nursing & Rehabilitation Facility in Kellogg would be greatly appreciated; as both of these organizations have shown unmitigated compassion to the Ellis and Griffiths Families.
Yates Funeral Home, Coeur d’Alene, is entrusted with the care of final arrangements.