In Memoriam: Fred Ellis

Fred Ellis passed peacefully at his home on Shaw Island on Friday, Feb. 5, He was 93 years old.

He was a founding member of the Friends of the San Juans and the San Juan Preservation Trust.

Professor Ellis made his first visit to Shaw in 1936, and purchased his first piece of land in 1937, making it his permanent home in 1946.

As the years passed, Fred and other members of his family continued to purchase land, and eventually controlled over one thousand acres of land, much of it consisting of forests with some old-growth trees, agricultural fields, wetlands, and shorelines.

On May 4, 2002, 579 acres of land on Parks Bay on Shaw were dedicated to the Frederick and Marilyn Ellis Biological Preserve (wife Marilyn passed away in 2000).

Fred attended Reed College in Oregon, majoring in Philosophy and Astronomy, and graduated in time to take part in WW II, where he found himself in Burma as a medic with the British 18th Army Dagger Division.

Like many of his generation, he attended college after the war, this time making the cultural jump from the free flowing Reed College to the structured academic life of Harvard. He obtained a Ph. D. in History and Philosophy, and held positions at several colleges, including Western Washington University - where he taught at the campus school and was a professor from 1964-1973. Ellis also found time to manage a 1,400-acre cattle ranch on Lopez Island, earning the Skagit County Cattleman of the Year award.

Fred and Marilyn continued to purchased land over the years, and if they did not hold it, they re-sold with conservation easements to limit or prohibit development; a practice that is now common with the San Juan County Land Bank.

It was Fred's wish to be buried next to Marilyn on their Shaw property. A public memorial service has not been planned at this time.

A 2007 interview with Ellis by WWU's Tamara Belts is here.