I was born Ellen Harvell in Newton, Massachusetts, at the height of the depression and the year Hitler and FDR came to power. I came late to my parents' lives, the youngest of five and we lived there in the Boston Area until my parents moved to Florida in my senior year of high school. I was married two years later and because of my husband’s company transfers, I attended five colleges in the South and in Texas, receiving a BA in English and American Literature, an MA in Literature with an emphasis on African-American studies, and a Masters in Theology from Southern Methodist University.

I was welcome there even as a Unitarian Universalist to study for the ministry and I was given approval by the UUA Fellowship Committee to do that since we weren't living near a UU seminary. After completing all the necessary requirements, including serving as a chaplain at Parkland Hospital, I was called to the Unitarian Universalist Church in Park Forest, Illinois—where I was ordained and stayed as senior minister for 10 years. I am the mother of two boys and a girl, Marcus, Luke and Katherine, now middle-aged, all married with children, all artists, and together making me the grandmother of four boys and a girl. Divorced while I was in seminary, I know what it is like to be a single mother of teenagers while working full time, in my case as a minister. All while continuing to be a social activist and doing what I could to be on the cutting edge of social progress and justice.

While living in Illinois, I met my present husband, Nick Livingston, who is an architect and an artist; he, the congregation, and I managed to build a lovely modern church for them in the woods in Park Forest, before moving on to a position as minister at the Monte Vista Unitarian Universalist Congregation in Montclair, California. While enjoying the life, the nature, the people and yes, the culture of this Inland Empire, we have hunkered down here for almost twenty years, with no plans to move. Since retiring in June, with the title of Minster Emerita, I have received the wondrous gift of time to travel, attend Buddhist retreats, study Spanish and French, continue much volunteer work, and try every morning to plan my day so I can “ get it all together.” This is always a “work in progress” and I revel in the freedom to follow my bliss, even amidst the challenges of aging and resources, the tumults of our world situation, the pits and peaks of it all. Nothing is complete, everything still is open for discovery.

Light-fully yours,
Ellen Livingston