Ellen Scovil, my wife and partner of almost 40 years, passed away peacefully at our home in Georgia yesterday around 7 PM. I was blessed to be at her side when she left this incarnation.
As many of you know, she was dealing with slowly progressing dementia for the better part of the last decade, with a more substantial decline in the last few weeks since the end of September.
Ellen was born in Brooklyn in 1945, moved to New Jersey with her family as a preteen, graduating High School and then coming to the Farm around 1974-75 as a single mom with her daughter, Nikki Molle.
Her second daughter, Nadene Snell was born on the Farm in the late 70’s. She worked on the Farming Crew, and served at times as Stephen’s secretary for soaker meetings, among other things.
Ellen was working as executive secretary for Plenty when we got together and were married in ’82.
In the summer of 1983, Ellen & I, along with another half dozen or so Plenty volunteers and the permanent crew of the sailing ship FRI, sailed on the Plenty mission to the Caribbean, which was quite the adventure/honeymoon.
We got back as the Farm was dealing with the turmoil of the changeover, and we wound up moving to Atlanta, where my parents & family were living.
We since lived in Georgia in and around metro Atlanta, where our son Noah was born in 1984.
Later in the 1990’s , Ellen & I regularly got involved the fledgling Drepung Loseling Tibetan Buddhist Center, and she attended many teachings and empowerments with the Lamas, as a dedicated student of Buddhist Dharma.
She moved with me to France and India for a year or two each when I was assigned by my employer to work at company offices overseas.
In the last couple of years, we started spending more time on the TN Farm , establishing a household as residents/provisional members, and Ellen re-established friendships with several old friends and helpers.
Some of you may have seen us walking on the main road, or crossed our paths in one way or another.
We were/are deeply grateful for our friendships in the community, and I want to thank all of you who helped Ellen, or even just sent her good vibes or just a friendly look or wave or smile, in these recent months and years.
I will miss her dearly, as I’m sure many of you will as well. She was quite the teacher, in her own way, and I really have no words to express all the emotions this brings up.
May her memory and her essential goodness resonate through our lives as we go on in her absence on this plane of existence, until it is our time to follow.
Thank you and love to all of us,
Randy Scovil