This page is dedicated to my mother .... it takes a while to open all the pictures ... thank you for waiting ....



IN MEMORIAM

Ellen Louise Marie Nief Riel

Born: Oct. 4, 1941 Died: April 4, 1998




She was born on the feast day of St. Francis of Assisi, in the California city named for St. Francis, San Francisco. She was the oldest of two girls born to the Niefs, Estelle and Frederick. Her sister, Lorraine, was born when Ellen was 2 years old.
As a young girl she was used as a model for print ads.

Ellen grew up in San Francisco and went to both public schools and private Catholic schools. She loved being taught by the sisters and for a while thought of entering the convent.
She grew to be a thoughtful, kind, compassionate, stubborn, willful, intelligent, and talented woman.

As a young woman she trained to be a nurse but ended her training to pursue other things.
One of those things was my father, Les Riel.


At 24 she married Les and had a daughter, (me).
Eighteen months later she had a son, Wayne.
She began to work for the Social Security Administration at the age of 25. And my family now lived in Southern California.

In 1968, her son and my brother, Wayne, died by drowning in a relatives pool. He died on my father's birthday, April 8.
Four months later, on August 21 my father died of Leukemia at the age of 33 years. My mother was now a widow of 26 years old.

In approx. 1970 she was promoted and transferred to Northern California, San Rafael. In 1978 or so, she again was promoted and transferred. This time to a city a little farther north, to the city of Santa Rosa, California. In 1980 we were off again due to another promotion and transfer. This time to Flagstaff, Arizona where my mother became the branch manager of the Flagstaff and Show Low Social Security offices.
Being a very spiritual woman, my mother became a professed sister of the Secular Franciscan Order. She also was a Eucharistic Minister in our church and she taught Baptism classes also.
In 1981 she developed Breast Cancer and had a radical mastectomy of her right breast. She had the surgery while on holiday leave so that she would not miss any work. She had one year of chemotherapy afterwards. Her weekly treatments were scheduled for Friday afternoons so that she would not have to take time off work.
By 1982 the office that she had come to run had jumped from being the worst office in the region to the number one office in the entire region. (about 150 offices in the region).
During her 18 years in Flagstaff she and her offices received numerous awards from the very highest sources in the agency.

A few years after the cancer scare, she was diagnosed with Diabetes.
Due to the chemotherapy treatments she later developed two different blood disorders that were severe.
She developed neuropathy of the feet and lower legs from the Diabetes that caused her to suffer greatly.
She still rarely missed a day of work and continued to earn awards, be innovative and highly productive at work.


She took great joy in my daughter, and her granddaughter, Sierra who was born in 1985.
Sierra became a shinning light and source of wonderful love for my mother.
In 1995 due to her blood disorders she had a hemorrhage in her left eye that required surgery. Though painful and a bit scary she again came through with hardly any time off from work.
In 1997, my mother suffered another hemorrhage. This time behind the retina of her right eye. This one was far more serious! In a period of 10 months that year, she had 24 surgeries on her eye, first to repair and finally, to remove, her eye. At one point she was admitted into the hospital where they kept her for an entire month on Morphine because of the terrible terrible pain.


On March 8, 1998, she was almost back to normal!
Around March 15 she developed a chest cold. It seemed an awfully strong One and by March 26 it seemed that perhaps she had Bronchitis.
I persuaded her to finally let me make an appointment with her doctor. Her appointment was for Tuesday, March 30, 1998.
She was admitted to the hospital that same day. On Wednesday she went into a coma and on Saturday night, April 4, she died.
We were told she had not had a chest cold. She had died from a rapidly growing lymphoma, cancer. They said the cancer was only 4-6 weeks old at the time of her death.


Her ashes were scattered on the San Francisco Peaks in Flagstaff, Arizona.

My mother was an extremely strong, intelligent and talented woman and we miss her every minute.
However, we celebrate, as we know she would want us to, her birth into her next life, with God.
She no longer suffers from pain, sadness, loneliness or fear.
She is with her son, her husband and her father. And most importantly, she is with the God that held her up throughout her trials and tribulations.

She is with the God who loves us all!

This page is my way of celebrating her earthly life and sharing a person with you that I respected and love very much.

Thank you for meeting my Mom!







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