My name is Nellie Elizabeth Ellis, but a few people called me "Nel." I was born in 1911 and was the seventh of eight children. Even though most of my family is gone, they are remembered because I'm still here.
My Grandmother McNeil, my mother's mother, was Irish, and she must have been orphaned because I don't know anything about her family. I think that my grandfather, James McNeil, was born in Kirkowan, Scotland. I don't know just where they were married and when, but I heard they were living in Liverpool, England, and he was working at Scotland Yard. They had sixteen children, and their oldest child was the only one born in Liverpool, England. After moving to America, they settled in Illinois.
There wasn't anything really spectacular about our family. They were simply hard workers. We moved from Kansas to Arkansas when I was four years old, and I don't remember much about it. My youngest sister, Babe, got real sick in 1915, and she was pretty sick for a long time. I guess it was kind of touch and go for a while, but she pulled through. Like other families at that time, there were a lot of children still living at home. Some of the teenager boys and girls went to work right away.
I always got along and had friends in school. There was one time, however, when I had made good grades and a girl slapped me! She said, "Well, you're just the teacher's pet!" I didn't know what to say or do because I was so stunned. I was in the eighth grade and had been selected to take a special test to try for a scholarship which would pay for me to attend high school. There were three Catholic schools in Little Rock: St. Andrew's, St. Edward's, and Our Lady of Good Counsel. One girl from each school was selected to take a test in hopes of winning the scholarship.
During the test, they called on me, and I missed one question about a "mugwump." This strange word is used to describe a politician that is sitting on "the fence," and he doesn't know whether to go where his "mug" tells him to go— or where his "wump" tells him to go! I didn't know what a mugwump was, but you can bet I've never forgotten it!
After the test, a student told me another girl won the scholarship because her father was dead. If they had thought about what they were saying, they would have realized the other girl's family had plenty of money and mine didn't! I went to the high school for only one year, though it was free. My family couldn't afford to send us to the Catholic school after that. Central High School was built not far from us, and we could have walked, but my parents wouldn't let us go to public school.
I would have loved to finish high school, but I went to work instead. At that time, completing ninth grade wasn't too bad, and finishing high school was really something. Most of my friends went to the public school, but my Mother would not hear of it. We could only have gone to a Catholic school. Momma lived her religion and believed that her family was supposed to go to their own church and school.
I was really afraid to step forward and ask questions, and I usually had to wait until something happened. I don't ask a lot of questions now, and sometimes I think it's because I don't want to know, and sometimes I think it's just none of my business. I can hear people talking and I don't like gossip. I really don't! I wish I had not been so shy back then. I've changed and overcome a lot of it now, though.
I was a bashful girl in high school and didn't know about a lot of the things the girls talked about. I didn't think they should be talking about things like sex, but one girl said, "I asked the priest about it, and it's all right for us to discuss it!" I didn't know about such matters, and I'm sure the other girls didn't either. However, I have remained good friends with some of them.
I had a few boyfriends before I met my husband. One boy, poor little guy, I was almost married to him when I met Walter. Broke his heart for a while, I guess. My friends took some pictures of me with the boy I almost married. I've got some good pictures of us looking around the car and laughing. We had a really good time then.
I was eighteen and working at the Arkansas Gazette. The back door led to the alleyway, which was where my friend would come through to pick me up from work. One day this boy brought his friend, Walter Ellis, for me to meet. My folks didn't like Walter because he was a divorcee. Walter was thirty-five, fifteen years older than I was, but he never seemed that old.
There was a robbery while we were working at the Arkansas Gazette. Over at this one desk, our boss, Mr. Chapel, always made out the payroll for his department. The robbery took place while I was gone to the restroom. Babe was there, and she told me one guy followed her around trying to find a way out. She was scared, and I don't blame her because they had a gun! Mr. Chapel got shot when some fellas that worked there demanded the money. Mr. Chapel thought he was kidding, but of course he wasn't because he got shot. He was such a nice person, and it was terrible that he died. The robbers were gone by the time I got back downstairs.
Getting married was something that Walter and I decided to do— that we wanted to do. We talked about it and got married that same day. I think Walter told his mother. I remember the judge asking, "Walter, why aren't you getting married at church?" Walter told him, "Well, it's kind of a religious problem," and he didn't carry it any further. Mom and Dad were upset because I married outside our religion and because Walter had been married before.
While we were living in Fort Worth, Texas, I decided to go out one day while Walter was at work. I got on the bus and thought nothing of sitting in the back. The motorman promptly came to the back and told me that I had to sit up front. It was 1935, and jim-crow laws were still in effect. You know, at that time on the train they even had separate drinking places for blacks and whites, and, I think, restrooms, too.
I thought it was silly to have separate facilities for blacks and whites. It was hard for me to understand. I was used to living in a place that kind of got away from racist attitudes. I was accustomed to blacks and whites being separate, but I didn't feel any animosity towards black people. However, a lot of other people did. That's why Central High School had so much trouble in 1957, because the people in Little Rock were not used to a mingling of the races.
Also, there was not the intermingling of the religions like there is now. The children had to go through a period of being adjusted into the public school, where maybe most of them were Baptist, or maybe Methodist. But now, people are accepted everyplace. Catholics, Jewish people, blacks, whites— all should be included. I like the mingling of the religions because they are all trying to go to the same place! Most of my friends now are Baptist, Lutheran, Church of Christ and Methodist. It doesn't matter to me what religion someone is. If I like the person, I like them, not because they go to a specific church.
Walter retired after fifty years with the railroad. Walter told me that when he retired I could go to work. I told myself that I had to learn to drive. Walter would take me, and he didn't like to wait when he'd come back to get me. So, I told him that I wanted to learn to drive and that I wanted an automatic shift. Soon after we bought the car, I had to learn how to back out of the driveway. What did I do but turn the wrong way and bang up the fender!
Walter lived about three years past what the doctors had predicted. They were amazed, too! Walter wouldn't have lived that long if his heart hadn't been so strong. He had cancer, and it just went all over him. He was up and around, never bedfast. One morning, I bathed him and took him up to the hospital. I pulled the car around to the front door and got it just as close as I could. He died at the hospital that night. It was 1985, and Walter was eighty-nine.
I was living in Little Rock when my brother, Andrew, had a heart attack. He was living in Wichita, Kansas, at that time, and his wife was there with him. I don't know how heart attacks happen, but he had awful chest pains, and I guess he just kind of fell out. They got him to the hospital, and the doctors said he would be all right. However, Andrew had another heart attack right on the operating table. One of the fellas stood right up on his chest and worked to get his heart going.
Now, there's just the two of us left. My youngest sister and I have nieces and nephews, but we don't see them much. They live in different places and have their own lives. All we can do is think about them, or maybe hear from them, or about them, once in a while. I try not to think too much about the year 2000. I just accept that it's coming! In a way, it's a strange feeling because when you're younger you don't even think that far ahead. Now, I don't know from day to day whether I'm going to be here or not! I've got a friend who says, "Aah, you're going to live to be a hundred!" I asked her, "If I do, are you going to push me around in my wheelchair?" She said, "Yeah!" She's eighty herself.