A Will to Serve
Please join us at The Seattle Public Library's Central Branch on June 2nd at 2:00 p.m., as we celebrate the long-awaited autobiography of civic activist Jim Ellis, A Will to Serve: A Story of Patience, Persistence, and Friends Made Along the Way. This event is free and open to the public, and you can RSVP at EventBrite. We hope to see you there, and we invite you to check out these excerpts in which Jim looks back at some of the many people he came to know over the years.
Jim Ellis was born in Oakland, California in 1921, but became a Seattleite at the age of two when his family moved to Washington. When he was 15, his father taught him and his younger brother Bob the art of self-sufficiency by dropping them off on five acres of woodlands that he owned near Preston. While the youngest brother, 8-year-old John, stayed home with their parents, Bob and Jim were told to build a cabin, and by the end of the summer the boys had completed the task.
After enlisting in the military on the day after Pearl Harbor, Bob was sent to fight in Europe while Jim was told by the Air Force to complete his studies at Yale. He graduated in 1942, married, and was stationed at an Air Force base in Idaho. When Bob was killed less than three months before the end of the war in Europe, Jim was devastated. To ease his grief, his wife, Mary Lou, suggested that he consider "doing something extra" in his own life to make up for what his brother might have done if he had lived. Jim took this to heart, and it became the driving force in his efforts to better the public good.
After receiving a law degree from UW in 1948, Ellis joined the law firm of Preston, Thorgrimson and Horowitz (later Preston, Gates & Ellis). He vowed to devote a quarter of his time to public service in honor of his brother, and he joined the Municipal League. After a failed attempt to draft a new King County charter, he reapplied himself to what he considered his greatest contribution to civic life, the creation of the Municipality of Metropolitan Seattle – Metro – and the cleanup of the badly polluted Lake Washington.
After that success – which earned him the nickname "father of Metro" – Ellis spearheaded the campaign to create Forward Thrust, an ambitious slate of bond-funded capital improvements, and sell it to the public. In 1968, voters said 'yes' to seven of the proposals. Among them were measures to build a $40 million domed stadium, the Seattle Aquarium, and 25 county swimming pools. One of the propositions set aside $118 million to develop new parks and trails, and voters also approved bonds to improve Woodland Park Zoo.
A transit measure that would have provided a rapid light-rail system for the county was supported by only 50.8 percent of the voters, and 60 percent was needed. Ellis and transit backers resubmitted it two years later, but by that time an 'economic downturn' soured any hopes for public approval. Nevertheless, the DNA of his proposal was still present decades later in the creation of Sound Transit and voter-approved funding for light rail.
In 1979 Ellis championed a successful farmlands preservation bond, then turned his attention to the construction and later expansion of the Washington State Convention & Trade Center. In 1990 he became chair of the Mountains to Sound Greenway Trust, which has protected and preserved nearly 1.5 million acres of land along the I-90 corridor from Puget Sound to Ellensburg. In 2019 the greenway was designated a National Heritage Area. Ellis (who died later that year) felt that of all the projects he was involved in, this one would be the closest to his brother Bob's heart.
Memorial Day
The Grand Army of the Republic first observed "Decoration Day" on May 30, 1868, to honor those who fell on the Union side (later extended to include Confederates) during the Civil War. The GAR chose late spring so that flowers in bloom could decorate the graves of the heroes. During World War I the holiday evolved into a day to commemorate American military members who died in all wars. In 1971 Congress set the last Monday in May as Memorial Day to ensure a three-day weekend for workers.
HistoryLink.org is proud to host the complete online honor rolls of Washington state citizens who made the ultimate sacrifice in the Philippine Insurrection, World War I, World War II (including merchant mariners), Korea, Vietnam, Grenada, the Gulf War, Afghanistan and Iraq. We also maintain online honor rolls of University of Washington students, faculty, and staff killed in World War II and public-safety officers statewide who died in the line of duty.
