Ellen H. Goll, 92

 

ROCKPORT, MASS. — Ellen Fisher Holman Goll was born Oct, 10, 1920, into a jewelry manufacturing family in Attleboro, Mass., the daughter of Samuel Morey Holman and Grace Fisher Holman. She spent her childhood summers at the family cottage on Snug Harbor in West Falmouth. Musical and linguistically talented, she played the piano and violin for school orchestra productions. She was also an organist. Ellen graduated Phi Beta Kappa class of 1942 from Wellesley College, the alma mater of both her mother and her aunt. Married soon after, she leaves behind three daughters: Marcia Storkerson and Rebecca Thompson of Sweden, Maine, and Barbara Goll of Rockport, Mass. Other surviving relatives are son-in-law David Johnson of Sweden, Maine; grandson Douglas Thompson and wife Elisabeth, great-grandchildren Owen and Alice Thompson of Columbia, S.C.; also grandson Andrew Thompson and his wife Heather; and great-granddaughter Ronnie of Brooklyn, N.Y.

As her children grew, Ellen went back to school at Middlebury College French School in Vermont, from which she earned a Master’s degree. She also spent several summers in France at the Universities of Grenoble, Paris, and Rennes as well as at a U.S. government session in Arcachon on the French Atlantic coast. She taught French for several years at Pentucket Regional High School, and for about twenty-five happy years at Manchester-by-the-Sea as head of the Foreign Language Department, attending occasional sessions in Spanish at Merrimac College and at San Miguel de Allende in Mexico. She taught French, German, Latin, and Spanish. Following retirement in 1989, she continued to teach part-time as a writing advisor, and then as English teacher for several years to a delightful home-schooled pupil.

Ellen enjoyed the familial companionship of her youngest daughter and the many pets they shared over the years.

She was predeceased by her parents and older brother, Warren Holman.