Eller Chronicles May 942 p- 5

The Eller Chronicles

Vol. VIII NO 2.	THE ELLER FAMILY ASSOCIATION	MAY 1994

Page - 127

ON THE ROAD WITH JOHN AND LUCY:

27 Nov 1993: Just an update on the reunion in Skiatook, OK, Sat. Nov. 27, 1993. It was such a success with 100+ attending in spite of the icy weather which kept several from Texas and Arkansas away. We are in the planning stage of a second reunion. We are hoping this will be an annual event. The plan is to. have the next one in Tahlequah, Oklahoma, the place where the Ellers first settled after leaving Towns County, Georgia. It was then Indian Territory.

25 Dec 1993: Lucy and I attended the annual Eller reunion in Muskogee, Oklahoma; these are the children of James Arvel Eller. All ten of James Arvel's children and their families were present. As usual, much good food and great fellowship with a lot of interest in the EFA, especially with the younger people. All of James Arvel's live in the Muskogee area and most of them are in the dairy farming business. They are a lovely bunch of people.

16 Jan. 1994: After a few days of rest and time for Lucy to do the laundry and pack, we are on our way to California. We took the south route to avoid the bad weather. On Jan. 18 we stopped in Tucson, Arizona and visited with Dwight and Pat Eller, had a nice visit and then on to Phoenix.

19 Jan 1994: Oh! wonderful 80 degrees. Our purpose in visiting Phoenix was to meet with a young man, Thomas Preston Eller Lyerla and his wife Sherry. Thomas is looking for his family; he is an Eller by birth but was adopted at age 3 by the Lyerla family. His father was Ralph 0. Eller and his grandfather was Thomas Preston Eller "Aka-press." His great grandfather was John Eller. We believe they all were located around Carlonville, Illinois. We made several contacts on this family and had a good response. If readers of the Chronicles know about this family please let us hear from you. Thomas has joined the EFA.

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21 Jan 1994: After two beautiful days in Phoenix we headed for Northern California. (The earthquake changed our route). After a two day visit with our daughter in Martinex, California we went on to Fairfield, California to visit with Cal and Wanda Eller Lyle. Cal is an expert on the computer and has agreed to assist Ed Eller of Dalton, GA with setting up a data base on the immigrant Jacob Eller line. Cal and Wanda are enthusiastic and are eager to help in anyway they can. They have also agreed to help Lucy and me in recruiting in Northern California. On Jan. 25, the four of us went to Vallijo, California to visit Zelma Trapp Stevens and her husband Steve. Had a nice visit and a great response to the EFA. In the afternoon of the 25th we headed to Modesto where we were guests of Gerald and Delores Eller Baldwin. We had the pleasure of visiting with Pearl Eller McMillon who is 97 years old. I remember Pearl and her first husband Lester Eller visiting in our home in Skiatook when I was about four years old. Needless to say, I was surprized to find her.

That evening after a wonderful dinner of fried chicken, hot biscuits and gravy (yum) we attended a basketball game with Gerald and Delores. Their son, # 45, Ryan Baldwin, wore the same number as did his father Rick when he played with the New York Mets. A very exciting game.

26 Jan 1994: We left for Bakersfield looking for more Ellers. We located John Lester Sellers "Bud". His grandmother was Montie Naomi Monera Cumi Eller. Here we gathered more info on Ellers and promoted EFA membership. At least four from that family joined.

27 Jan 1994: We left Bakersfield for Romoland, California, by-passing L.A. (Shakey ground). Here we visited with Pete and Jay Eller and their family. Pete and Jay started the Eller Trucking Company and also harvested ground crops (potatoes and onions). They are now retired and the company is being run by their off-spring. We had a good visit with these families and encouraged a reunion with all the California Ellers. After a few days of R&R in San Diego we headed for home on the 30th.

3 Mar. 1994: This AM we are on our way to Edgewater, Florida where we will be visiting the winter home of Kent and Faye Eller. Kent and I did do some fishing, (didn't catch anything - but it was fun); then Kent and I started calling on Ellers in Florida and North Carolina. Made several contacts and since we got back home I have had Lucy busy sending our applications and information on all the up-coming events of the EFA. Expecting a lot of response from this area.
(Pictures on next page)........................................................................ John Eller.
Eds.- this is another example of how work can be done quickly and more efficiently when members volunteer to act as coordinators and are given their freedom to do a job their way. If the EFA board had tried to first form a recruitment committee, we would still be Foundering around trying to find members willing to serve. This proves, we think, that the EFA does not need a heavy handed bureaucratic approach to meeting the goals of the organization. We need only more who will volunteer to do a job and then go forth and get it done without being micro-managed by the Board or the Officers.

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Thomas Preston Eller Lyerla family
Thomas' father and uncles

Eller Brothers Trucking
Pete & Allene Eller
Jay & Betty Eller

John Lester "Bud" & Eleanor Sellers; he is gr. grandson of John C. Eller
97 year old Pearl Eller McMillon, w/o Lester Eller

Click on a thumbnail picture above to get a larger representation, then use your browser's back button to get back here. [ADE]

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(Text from page 132 [ADE])

ZELMA STEVENS

    Zelma Stevens has been an exhibiting and award-winning artist for over 40 years, yet she continues to study. A realist at heart, she is also an incurable romanticist. Her floral paintings, especially, have that poetic quality inherent in the work of an idealist, to whom the world is beautiful and the people worthwhile.
    Stevens began her an training at the Bijitsuka Art School in Japan, instructed by the noted professor Ukai Hashimoto. She has also studied with Sergei Bongart of Rick's Art School in Idaho, and national academicians Douglas Parshall and Elliot O'Hara. She eventually enrolled at Channel Artists' Studios in Vallejo, California, where she was encouraged to weld the various influences into the personal style characteristic of her recent work.
    Zelma's art has been included in many juried group shows, and she has had numerous solo exhibitions. Her roster includes the Tokyo Museum, Japan; Swan Gallery, Edmonds, England; Gibbs Museum, South Carolina and the California Museum of An, among others. Her work is also included in the prestigious Smithsonian Institute traveling show of graphic art. The Grumbracher Silver Medallion at the Northern California National League of American Pen Women competition and Best of Show at the California Pacific Sports Conference are among the major awards Stevens has won.
    The artist is a biographee in the Fourth Edition of the elite World Who's Who of Women, published in Cambridge, England.
    Often commissioned for special work, Stevens designed a magazine cover for the NLAPW magazine, based in Washington DC. She has designed benefit posters, wine labels, and promotional limited edition prints for various organizations in California.
    Stevens has recently completed a series of paintings of the American Southwest addressing the interaction of the landscape with figures and floral images. In them she uses a direct and forceful mode of election that bespeaks her vigorous joy in this difficult task she set for herself.

Photocopy of Page

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"Steve" ~~Stephens~~ Stevens and Zelma
Zelma is the d/o Callie Eller Trapp
(See previous page)

LEADERSHIP
SOLUTION

    The first step toward solving a region's economic problems is to talk about them, says Ron Eller, a former Mars Hill College history professor who know heads the University of Kentucky's Appalachian Center.
    A community can't do much about any of its problem until it has some consensus about what they are and what to do about them, said Eller, who is overseeing a program to do just that in several Kentucky counties.
    The program involves specialized "leadersho" training for a wide variety of people in the communities - "welfare mothers and corporate leaders," Eller said - and open meetings in which the entire population is invited to come speak its piece.

    "They're designed to got people to look at a range of alternatives, a range of opinions and to try to reach a common ground that everybody may not be thrilled with, but that they can live with," Eller said.
    "When people begin to take their own initiative, it's very amazing what can happen with very little resources."
    The programs are different from more conventional ones designed to train community leaders in that they bring in people from all areas of a community, not just yuppies, Eller said.
    "A lot of leadership programs essentially support upwardly mobile professional people and the main benefit is they are able to network to advance their careers," he said. "Our main program is designed to enhance the commonwealth, not just the individual wealth."

Dr. Ron Eller, Prof. of Hist. and leading authority on economic, social and cultural history of Southern Appalachia is frequently in the news and on television. I have known him for a number of years; he was the first to introduce me to the Hook books. He was an EFA member in the early years but has dropped out. He and his wife have been our house guests and are wonderful people to know. I hope to get him back into the EFA and to the Asheville Conf ... JGE

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John Lester "Bud" & Eleanor Sellers; he is gr. grandson of John C. Eller	97 year old Pearl Eller McMillon, w/o Lester Eller