I first met Ellen while chatting with her at Weight Watchers meetings and then sometime in 2015 I began assisting her with various rightsizing projects in her lovely home.  From our conversations I know she had taken a special interest in her students and that they had been lucky to have her as their professor.  

She was also very kind to me.  Even though she had had to endure the death of her daughter, had the beginnings of Parkinson’s, and was about to leave her home of many decades, she included me in a farewell luncheon with her former colleagues and made it a point to inform them I help with moves and home rightsizing.

A Sampling of Things Ellen Wall Taught Me:

• That a pill box may be used to remind you that something has or has not been done depending on whether the lid is up or down.
• The fact that there are several copies of the same play on a bookshelf is not a sign of superfluousness in a collection if the footnotes in each differ.
• That a linen closet is the perfect repository for overflow office supplies.
• That when the universe cruelly hurls too many speed balls at once for you to have any hope of hitting them, there are a few extraordinary people such as Ellen Wall who through their own might and with the help of their exceptional family, rise to continue swinging nonetheless.

Claudia Kraehe – San Francisco