Like the poet's "Wonderful One Hoss Shay," at age 91, Ellen Virginia Chiles finally wore out. Lean and strong her whole life, she worked, lived, and loved with an intensity that burns bright for her many friends and relatives.

Ellen grew up on a small farm north of Lincoln, Missouri, a robust German Lutheran community that survived wars, depressions and windstorms. She walked miles (uphill!) to her one-room McMurdo grade school and graduated from Lincoln High School in 1942. Her first job was cooking hearty meals for threshing crews over a wood-fired cookstove. From this smoky beginning her hands prepared decades of soul sustaining meals for all who were hungry.

She ciphered and studied at Central Business School in Sedalia. Diploma in hand, she became a clerk at the Benton County Court in Warsaw. She cooked for cops and criminals at the County Jail and they never had it so good. In 1946 she met Dick Chiles who was calling on the Benton county court selling motor graders for his father's construction-machinery business. Dick was a former fighter pilot who barreled down the blue highways looking for his beautiful blonde farm girl. They fell madly in love and for 67 years of married life they were inseparable.

Ellen and Dick roamed the Ozarks and the far ends of the earth, visiting all fifty states and 105 countries. In 1981 they built a timber-frame house on a hill overlooking a spring-fed lake on a Greene County farm. They landscaped the ridges and valleys with trees, flowers, garden crops, and ferns. Generations of friends and admirers have walked these trails and now they see with new eyes.

Ellen's mind held thousands of questions searching for an answer. She was funny, encouraging and relentless. She served us as a mother, friend, sister, confidant, mother-in-law, grandmother and great-grandmother. Her sweet spirit lives in the hearts of all those who love her deeply.

Ellen was a founding member of Redeemer Lutheran Church. Her Christian faith was the bedrock of her life. In Ellen we saw "faith, hope and love abide, these three...and the greatest of these is love." 1 Corinthians 13

She survived by brothers Larry (Carol) Lumpe and Don Lumpe, children Mike (Mary) Chiles, Dan (Margy) Chiles, Jim (Christine) Chiles; grandchildren Anna Faucett, Steve Jacobsen, William Chiles, John Chiles, Mary Ellen Chiles, Elizabeth Chiles, Ingrid Chiles, Philip (Bernie) Chiles, Thomas (Ingrid) Chiles, David Chiles, Amelia Chiles, Benjamin (Emma) Chiles, Jeffrey (Emily) Chiles, Kevin Chiles, and six great-grandchildren.

The celebration of her life will be held on Monday, February 13. Visitation at 10 am, with an 11 am service at Redeemer Lutheran Church, 2852 S. Dayton in Springfield. Please join us for a lunch reception at the church to follow.

Because Ellen believed that kids belong in nature, she asked that you open your heart and honor her with donations to a cause she loved: YMCA Camp Wakonda Scholarship Fund, 417 S. Jefferson, Springfield, MO, 65806, or, write to Steve at smaynard@orymca.org.