Leslie Ellis

Study hard. Do your best. You have every opportunity to be who you want to be and do what you want to do. Set your sights high and reach for the stars.

Leslie Ellis

My name is Leslie Ellis. I was born many, many, many years ago in Richmond, Virginia in the year of 1927. First I would like to say thank you for inviting me here today. As I sit and see your beautiful faces, my thoughts go back to when I was your age. I must say that things are quite different today than when I was your age.

First, we had no cell phones in those days. We had a phone that was ugly and occupied space. Another thing we didn’t have in those days was refrigeration like you have today. In those days we had the old ice box. When it comes to television, we never heard of it. We did have radios. We use to gather around and listen to stories and plays.

When I was your age, in the south we had segregation. The law stated that whites and blacks had to be separated. It was difficult at times to tell who was Caucasian and who was African American. Blacks had to live in a black neighborhood and whites in their neighborhood. We had to attend separate schools. We had to attend separate restaurants to eat. We even had segregation in the military.

I went to an all-black elementary school, an all-black high school, and a mostly all-black college. I earned my Bachelor of Science degree in biology. After college I worked in medical research and then went into public health. I retired around 1980. Since retiring I’ve been doing volunteer work for the cancer society and also with committees for my wife’s memorial. My wife’s name was Jean Harris. Jean was vice president of Control Data and mayor of Eden Prairie from 1995 until she died of cancer in December of 2001.

Jean played the piano and gave recitals. One day I saw advertisements on the trees and lamp posts around the city announcing her recital at my college. I looked at the posters and thought, “She’s a pretty girl.” I attended and after the concert her mother was standing outside talking to friends. I went up and I told her mother how much I enjoyed the concert. She said, “Wonderful, are you a musician?” I said, “I am studying piano a little, plus music theory and composition.” She said, “Oh, you must come over to our house and play for us.”

I started thinking, ”Play for you. I can hardly play at all.” I went over a week later to visit, because I wanted to meet Jean. I had my music under my arm. I was late and Jean said, “Well, you were going to play for us, but mother has gone to bed. It’s getting late, but please play something for me.” I took a seat on the piano bench and positioned myself. As my wife use to tell the story, I then proceeded to play with one finger.

We dated eight years. The parents questioned our intentions, so we got married after Jean finished medical school. We had two daughters. We moved to Minnesota in 1985.

Our guiding philosophy is to treat everyone on equal terms. It was our obligation to reach back and pull someone else forward. We felt we were lucky to have been able to achieve whatever we did.