Mary Loraine Bay Ellis

We are happy for our dear Mom, Mary Loraine Bay Ellis, who died August 23, 2024, age 95, because we know how much she has longed to be again with Dad, Robert J. Ellis since he died in April of 2023.

Although we are happy for the sweet reunion with him, her son Paul and her many family members in heaven, we will surely miss Mom. We will miss seeing her obedient, unassuming spirit as she prayed, read scriptures every day and wrote in her journal. We will miss being at Grandma’s house where the cookie jar was never empty and where we were always welcomed with love and joy. We will miss watching her hold our babies and then watching her play with those babies as they grew up. She loved children of all ages. Mom and Dad were supportive of everything we did—they attended hundreds of baby blessings, baptisms, graduations, Eagle Courts of Honor, mission farewells and homecomings and weddings. As Caitlyn said: “She saw our value and helped us see it, too.“

Since dementia robbed her of so much, we have missed her sharp wit, her wisdom, her grammar corrections, her unconditional love, sewing and mending all of our clothes, her generous ways. We will miss the example she was continuously setting for us of helping neighbors, going on several service missions with Dad, accepting many church callings—including teaching Primary at 88, working in the laundry at the temple in her 90s, and asking her Bishop for a temple recommend even when she could no longer attend the temple last year.

Her home was always available to our friends and many family members. There was always room for one more besides her own ten children for dinner or for a week or for a year. She taught us how to repair furniture, how to paint and wallpaper rooms, how to garden, to can what we grew, to skin a deer, and how to manage finances. We miss her cheerful availability for anything we needed—including tending our children, launching the boat at the lake, building cabins, shoveling rocks, pouring concrete and hanging sheetrock.

Mom’s brother Elvon, told of going to a building supply store and overhearing a worker there say, “You should have seen it—an 80 year-old-man and an 9-month pregnant woman were just here buying cinderblocks and picking up a huge I-beam for the garage they’re building!” Uncle Elvon told him, “That was my sister Mary and my Dad.”

Mom was born in Junction, Utah July 23, 1929. She is the fourth of eight children born to H. Earl and Iola Bay. She assisted her father who was the postmaster and helped run his motel, ice cream shop and gas station. During the great depression he worked anywhere he could find work and eventually moved his family of ten to Salt Lake City where Mom met Bob Ellis, her future husband. His family had just moved back to Salt Lake City after living in the Joseph Smith home in New York and farming there for several years. In 1948 as Mary and Bob were graduating from West High School, the Ellis family was asked to return to Palmyra. Bob asked Mary to marry him and go with his family. They were married on April 9, 1948 in the Salt Lake Temple and moved to New York. They had not been separated for almost 75 years until Dad passed away a few days before their anniversary.

Mary and Bob are the parents of ten children. With their spouses, they are Laura and Brian Leary, Marianne and Davis Tonks, Kathy and Kent Parsons, Connie and Rob Carrier, Chris and Richard Quincy, Bob and Pam Ellis, Dean and Erika Ellis, Paul and Amy Ellis, Nancy and Medardo Gomez, and Scott and Kristi Ellis. Mary and Bob are also grandparents to 57, great-grandparents to 139, and great-great- grandparents to five. They have 274 descendants, including spouses.

Mary is survived by her brother Paul N. Bay and preceded in death by her husband Robert Ellis, her son Paul B. Ellis and son-in-law Richard Wilson.

Visitation will be Friday, September 6 from 6-8:00 pm at Larkin Sunset Gardens, 1950 E 10600 S, Sandy, UT and funeral services will be Saturday, September 7 at noon at the Lone Peak 4th Ward Chapel at 2080 Pinecrest Lane, Sandy, with viewing before from 10 to 11:30 am. Burial will take place at the Taylorsville City Cemetery at 4567 S Redwood Rd.

To watch the funeral services live via Zoom please click the blue "Watch Services" button at the top of the obituary page.