William Warren Ellis Jr. ’46

Bill Ellis died Aug. 30, 1997, at his home in Columbus, Ohio after a long battle with Parkinson's disease.

A graduate of Plainfield [N.J.] H.S., Bill majored in politics at Princeton and graduated in 1947, elected to Phi Beta Kappa. He served in the Navy from 1943-46, in the Atlantic theater as a P.T. boat captain. A 1949 graduate of Columbia U. School of Law, he worked for an NYC firm for seven years before joining Vorys, Sater, Seymour and Pease in Columbus, specializing in corporate and tax law until he retired in 1992.

Always devoted to ecology, Bill had been chairman of the Ohio chapter of Nature Conservancy, and with his wife, Ann, established and funded Crane Hollow State Preserve in southern Ohio. He was an accomplished naturalist and botanist. He also served as chairman of the First Community Church.

Bill leaves his wife; their children, William W. Ellis III '73, Barbara Evans, Janet Hansen, and Susan Jane Liston; four grandchildren; and his sister, Marion Leavitt. To them all the class extends its deep sympathy on the loss of a fine man and loyal classmate.

The Class of 1946