08/24/2025
After a life shaped by great adventure, personal loss, and steadfast devotion to her family and her faith, Patricia Isabell Jordan Ellison went to claim her eternal reward on August 19, 2025, seventeen days before her 95th birthday. She passed at home surrounded by loving family members and loyal companion, her dog Buster Brown.
Born September 5,1930, on a rural homestead in Dalton, Georgia, she was the fourth child of Ella Alice Pangle Jordan and Henry Lee Jordan and was a graduate of Dalton High School. While still in school, she met Hubert Benton Ellison, a young Marine who had just returned home from serving in Asia during World War II. They eloped before her graduation day, inciting the temporary fury of her mother and creating a lifelong reputation for self-possession, determination, and occasional stubbornness. Their marriage lasted for 65 years until Hubert’s death in 2013. They were the loves of one another’s lives and faithful partners and friends. When asked in his final days what was the secret to an enduring marriage, Hubert said, “Find the prettiest girl in town and never let her go.”
Indeed, Patricia was always known for her remarkable beauty as well as her grace, wit, charm, and devotion to her Christian faith. She and Hubert served many church communities throughout the southeastern United States, both as active congregants and later in leadership roles after he became an ordained minister in the United Methodist Church. Their faith never wavered, even in the face of tragedy and loss. On Mother’s Day in May 1959, Hubert, Patricia, and their two young daughters were involved in a car crash. The couple sustained catastrophic injuries and were subsequently hospitalized for months. Their youngest daughter, Lee Ella, not quite five years old, died in the accident.
Few couples come through such a tragedy intact, but through their faith and their love for one another and their surviving daughter, the Ellisons not only survived but thrived. Patricia, never expected to walk again, gave birth to another daughter while still on crutches. Their son was born the following year, and they raised their family in Georgia, Florida, and the Carolinas.
When the youngest two children became older, Patricia felt called to do her own ministry. She became a delegate of Stonecroft Ministries where she supported women in exploring personal reconciliation, spiritual redemption, family restoration, and community transformation. An eloquent speaker, she made presentations to tens of thousands nationally and internationally, helping to raise funds to support small churches in small communities that lacked financial capacity to hire full-time ministers.
Patricia and Hubert were avid gardeners who shared their passion for the natural world with their children and grandchildren. They grew dozens of crops at their cabin in North Georgia where their first three grandchildren ran barefoot with blackberry-stained fingers throughout the happiest years of their childhoods. Patricia loved flowers, trees, dogs and birds and often said she thought heaven would be filled with birdsong. She canned homegrown produce, made the best caramel layer cake in the world, and instilled a love of fried okra and cornbread throughout her entire lineage. She was a talented seamstress who made many of her children’s clothes. She was the absolute embodiment of an extrovert who turned strangers into friends nearly every day of her life and was adored by all who met her. She was a disciplined scholar of the Bible, who could recite scripture chapter and verse. She was a world traveler, who always like coming home to Georgia. She loved riding her bicycle, recklessly driving a golf cart, and preparing dinner for her daughter Emily and son-in-law Chuck, with whom she shared the last ten and a half years of her life on St. Simons Island.
Of all her many passions, Patricia loved nothing more than her family. She cherished her four children, seven grandchildren, and eleven great grandchildren beyond measure. Every one of them came to visit her in the last week of her life. Her final gift to her family was pouring every remaining ounce of energy and love she had into those visits. She gave herself thoroughly to intimate conversations with her family, moments of prayer, expression of her pride in each of them, and boundless gratitude for a long, well-lived life.
Patricia was predeceased by her parents, her sister Deleen Jordan Gresham Woodall, two young brothers who died before she was born, her husband Hubert, and her daughter Lee Ella. She is survived by her daughter Emily Ellison and son-in-law Chuck Perry, who she proudly introduced to everyone as her son; her daughter Jan Ellison (Mike Williams); her son The Reverend Vann R. Ellison (Lisa); grandchildren Patrick Seay (Erin), April Seay Torres, (Mike), Elli Perry (Cory Spangler), Jordan Ellison (Madison), Joshua Ellison (Natasha), Ricky Ellison (Bella), and Scotty Ellison; the 11 great grandchildren who she adored with a 12th to be delivered in early 2026; beloved nieces and nephews; her dog Buster Brown, Emily and Chuck’s dog Lily who often napped with her; and countless loving friends from across the country.
Funeral services for Patricia will be conducted at Wesley Church at Frederica, St. Simons Island, Georgia. Patricia will be laid to rest beside her husband in West Hill Cemetery in Dalton, Georgia. In lieu of flowers, please consider making a donation in her memory to Wesley Church at Frederica, the St. Simons Land Trust, or the ministry of your choice.
Local arrangements have been entrusted to Love Funeral Home, Dalton, Georgia.
