Ella Mae Ludwick

Ella Mae (Rolo) Ludwick would have laughed at her final situation. In September 2020, she was diagnosed with breast cancer, & scheduled for scans & tests to determine treatment, but she fell & fractured her ankle which put her in a cast, & delayed testing. Then came CoVid and Pneumonia. She died Saturday afternoon, 5 December 2020. Her Grand-daughter Beth was able to visit her Friday evening, which I believe was Ella Mae’s final blessing here on earth. She responded to Beth holding her hand and playing for her piano music videos by other grand-daughters, often accompanied by Grandma in duets. Ella Mae loved and was very proud of her family’s participation and talent in the field of music. Ella Mae Rolo was born 29 November 1925 in Pratt, Kansas, when her parents, Orlo & Helen Rolo, lived in Wilmore and then Sun City, establishing Orlo’s career in education. She was named after her paternal grandmother, Ella Mae Yoder Rolo. They moved to Long Beach, California in 1928, and her sister Patricia was born. Ella Mae met neighbor Dick Ludwick in junior high. After high school, Dick joined the Navy, assigned to the V-12 Aeronautical Engineering program at Purdue. Ella Mae went to Redlands University for 2 years, until Dick wanted her to come get married, 2 February 1946, in Chicago. This California girl had never heard of Groundhog Day. In August 1946 they came to Wichita, for Dick’s aircraft job and her Uncle Halsey (& Martha) Hulburt. Here they raised three children, Martha (1949) named for Dick’s mother, David (1951), & Bruce (1953) for the only good friend we called Uncle, but he wasn’t really. Ella Mae & Dick become very active in the Presbyterian Church, Camp Fire Girls, & Boy Scouts. They loved camping & Jeeping in Colorado. Ella Mae became a Life Member of the American Camping Association, visiting & inspecting camps all over Kansas. She also became a Friend of the Great Plains Nature Center. After Dick’s sudden death in 1973, Ella Mae had to get her first paying job. She got a Federal Government job, clerking in District & Federal Courts, and at the VA, until retirement in 1989. She always loved to drive, even though her daddy Orlo made her learn on a clutch up Signal Hill. She also got her heavy foot from him. She took many long and winding road trips, staying with many of you family & friends. She loved connecting people who knew people she was related to somehow. “Where in western Kansas?” “Where in southern California?” She never forgot a name or date of when something had happened years ago. She loved to play games, especially Bridge. She belonged to several Bridge Clubs over the years, often simultaneously, but a solid core of best friends has stood the test of time, that is now running out. Her grand-daughter Beth Mills recalls: “She loved watching football in the fall and basketball in the spring. She spent decades enjoying the Wichita Symphony and Music Theater Wichita with some of her long-time girlfriends. She taught me (er… us grandchildren) so many things: how to make peanut butter cookies, deviled eggs, tuna salad, & beef stroganoff. And a plethora of games. (Casino, anyone?) My boys loved going over to play with her. And the fact that she lived just a few blocks away made for very frequent visits, often on bikes on their way home from school. I definitely attribute my passion for music & long drives to her. As well as my ‘crazy’ and my ‘social bugging’. She and I have always been social butterflies, willing and able to talk to anyone, anywhere. Quality time was definitely her love language. She would gladly sit and talk with anyone who would give her the gift of their time.” Several other g-kids have expressed the same appreciation for Ella Mae’s beef stroganoff & peanut butter cookies, and camping & road trips, with a heavy foot. She didn’t teach them music, but she felt it and shared the environment of music appreciation with her family. She lived on Rockwood for 43 years, raising children with Dick for 28, then mostly on her own for 15. In 1990, after Orlo died in Long Beach, California, Helen came to Wichita to be with Ella Mae. In 1991, Helen moved to Prairie Homestead, then Homestead Health Center. In 1993, Ella Mae moved to an independent living duplex on the east circle at Prairie Homestead. She said it was like moving home because she had known residents & staff for all the many years our family has lived here. Her grandmother Emma Jane Hulburt was a charter resident of PH in 1966, at age 90, & the first to live out on campus. She died at PH Infirmary in 1975, age 99½. Except for the next 3 years, our family has always been here. Her son Halsey (& Martha) Hulburt came in 1978. Her daughter, his sister Helen in 1991, and Ella Mae in 1993. Then, in the summer of 2018, Shingles took her down. In October she moved next door to Homestead Health Center. Helen was a DAR (Daughter of the American Revolution), working on her Mayflower genealogy, so Ella Mae got involved. She traveled the Midwest, visiting County Court Houses, Libraries, Newspapers, Cemeteries where she made several Gravestone Rubbings, in search of the proofs needed to become a bonafide Pilgrim, which she did on 24 April 2003. More specifically, she was officially recognized as a 13th great-grand-daughter of Puritan Separatist Elder William Brewster, who was instrumental in the success of the Mayflower adventure, wrote the Mayflower Compact, & was the settlement’s Reverend. He had been forced to leave England because he published subversive religious literature. Ella Mae was very proud to be a Life Member of the General Society of Mayflower Descendants, & the Society of Mayflower Descendants in the State of Kansas = bonafide Pilgrim. Ella Mae was preceded in death by her husband “Dick” Richard H. Ludwick (1973), sister “Pat” Patricia Rolo Woods (1981), father Orlo Milo Rolo (1989), and mother Helen Theresa Hulburt Rolo (1999). Ella Mae is survived by all three of their children: Martha Louise Ludwick Hopper (Frank), David Richard Ludwick (Pam), Bruce Rolo Ludwick (Patt). Grandma Ella Mae’s ten grandkids include one grand-son Richard (Denelle), & nine grand-daughters: Elanor (Zach), Jesse, Elizabeth, Teal (Nick), Tess (Brandon), Bekah (Adam), Abby (Christopher), Rachael (Miles), & Sarah. GG’s eleven (Great-Grand) GG-kids include six gg-sons: Jonathan, Caden, Jacob, Jeremiah, Hudson, & Kelan, and five gg-dtrs: Elaina, Evelyn, Thessaly, Arrowlee Mae, & Avi. And GG knows new baby Hopper, due mid-January 2021. At Ella Mae’s request, please send Remembrance Donations to: Great Plains Nature Center - GPNC.org, scroll down to Donations, or mail to - 6232 E. 29th St. North, Wichita, KS 67220 Music Theatre Wichita - mtwichita.org, click Support, then Donations or mail to 225 W. Douglas, Ste.202, Wichita, KS 67202 OR, of course, Prairie Homestead, 1605 W. May St., Wichita, KS 67213