Kupuna Elizabeth 'Tutu Mama' Ellis
By Carrie Ching
Advertiser Staff Writer
Elizabeth Nalani Mersberg MacMillan Ellis, an educator in Hawai'i public schools for 40 years and one of the original participants in the Department of Education kupuna program, died June 15. She was 100 years old.
"She was a very outgoing and creative educator," said her daughter, Betty Ellis Jenkins of Waialua. "Education was a top priority in our family."
After retiring from 40 years as a teacher and administrator in the public school system, Ellis began mentoring as a kupuna at Hale'iwa Elementary School.
Ellis, known to her family as "Tutu Mama," was born in Pa'auhau on the Hamakua Coast of the Big Island and raised by her grandparents. Her mother and father lived on a sugar plantation, but her grandparents raised her in a traditional Hawaiian homestead setting. Hawaiian was her first language.
While teaching on Kaua'i, she met and married Richmond Kaliko Ellis from Nawiliwili. They raised their two children in Hilo, then moved to Kamehameha Heights on O'ahu in December 1941, just days before the bombing of Pearl Harbor.
Jenkins said her mother collected Ni'ihau shell lei and precious stones. She loved the music of Na Leo Pilimehana, as one of her granddaughters, Nalani Jenkins Choy, is one of the singers in the trio.
In 2000, Ellis was honored as the grand marshal of the Kamehameha Day Parade. The matriarch of four generations of Hawaiian women, she rode with her daughter, a granddaughter and great-granddaughter in a decorated car.
Ellis was a member of the Ahahui Ka'ahumanu Society for more than five decades. She also was a longtime member of the YWCA, Daughters of Hawai'i, Masonic Eastern Star, Daughters of the Nile, Scottish Rites Beauseant, and was a founding member of the Queen Emma Hawaiian Civic Club, and the matriarch of Ali'i Pauahi Hawaiian Civic Club and Na Kupono.
In addition to her daughter, Ellis is survived by a son, Richmond Kaliko Ellis Jr.; five grandchildren and 10 great-grandchildren.
Services will be held Tuesday at Kawaiaha'o Church from 4 to 6 p.m. Aloha attire. No flowers.
Reach Carrie Ching at cching@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8054.
