BALLSTON SPA – At mid-day on Thursday, December 10, 2015, Dr. Elizabeth Ely Fuller passed away peacefully. Ely was a teacher, writer, naturalist, therapist, adventurer and so much more to her family and friends. She had her 72nd birthday a month earlier and recently had a pleasant Thanksgiving in the care of many friends and family at The Wesley Community in Saratoga Springs, New York.
It is fitting that Ely Fuller died on International Human Rights Day, December 10, as she was always aware and outspoken of the suffering and less fortunate in the world. Ely was always thinking and was knowledgeable about many subjects, as evidenced by the work for her doctorate of philosophy. She wrote her dissertation on John Milton, a British poet, whose birthday coincidentally was on December 9, one day earlier than Ely’s death. Their close timing of life and death is related to their similar ways of thinking, as captured in a quotation from Milton:
“Gratitude bestows reverence, allowing us to encounter everyday epiphanies, those transcendent moments of awe that change forever how we experience life and the world.”
Ely was so full of gratitude to all who helped and knew her, just as she was alert and always ready for the next transcendent moment in her life. Even as a teenager in the 1950s, her friends remember her as full of vigor and awareness; she was named best camper of the year at Camp Onaway on Newfound Lake near Bristol, New Hampshire.
After successfully finishing her junior and high school years at Garrison Forest School in Owings Mills, Maryland, Ely earned her Bachelor of Arts degree in 1966 at Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, New York. Following college, she studied at the Université de Poitier in Poitier, France, and subsequently entered the doctorate program in English Literature at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, New York City. Here under the guidance of Professor Allen Mandelbaum, she completed her dissertation and was awarded her PhD in the 1970s. Still available commercially, the dissertation is based upon Milton’s poem, “Paradise Lost” and is entitled: Milton’s Kinesthetic Vision in Paradise Lost, published by Bucknell University Press in 1983.
Ely was always a teacher. For several years in the 1980s she was an Assistant Professor teaching English Literature at Babson College in Babson Park near Wellesley, Massachusetts. In the 1990s she became a therapist in the Boston area, practicing and teaching principles and techniques to diverse groups of therapists.
In 2002 Ely moved to Ballston Spa and spent over a dozen happy years in the Saratoga Springs area. She was a person with many interests and pursued them all, including traveling with her friends in North America, collecting rocks and crystals, keeping several pets and breeding parrots, hiking, snow-shoeing, and kayaking in Lake George.
Ely Fuller’s relatives and their spouses who survive her include her brother Frank Lanneau Fuller and his wife Sarah Fuller of Berkeley, California. Her first cousin, Joe Spofford and his wife Marie Spofford live in Milton, New York, and their daughter, Lisa Spofford is in Saratoga Springs. Ely has numerous cousins throughout the United States who survive her.
Ely was a congregant at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Saratoga Springs. Members of the congregation, her cousin’s family, and her good friend Bob Ballad of Scotia have been her constant companions and faithful supporters. Ely has requested that if people would like to make donations in her name, they should be sent to:
•American Federation of Aviculture, http://www.afabirds.org, or, http://www.afabirds.org/donation.shtml
•Nature Conservancy, http://www.nature.org, or, https://support.nature.org/site/Donation2?10420.donation=form1&df_id=10420&intc=nature.tnav.membership.list
•World Parrot Trust, http://www.parrots.org, or, http://www.parrots.org/donate
A funeral service will take place on Saturday, January 9, 2016 at 3 p.m. at William J. Burke & Sons/Bussing and Cunniff Funeral Home, 628 North Broadway in Saratoga Springs.
Online remembrances may be made at www.burkefuneralhome.com
