Funeral Mass Set Tuesday for Lillie Ellsworth, 90

A funeral mass will be said Tuesday for Lillie Ellsworth, a 90-year-old North County woman known to three generations for her political and charitable activities.

Ellsworth, who died Thursday, moved to Carlsbad in 1917. Following the death of her husband, George, she became one of the area’s first traveling saleswomen, covering the back country area from Riverside and Temecula to the Pala Indian Reservation and south, to support her two sons.

During the Depression, Ellsworth worked as a seamstress with a WPA sewing project in Oceanside and later became a librarian at the Horne Street Elementary School.

During World War II, Ellsworth invited Marines from Camp Pendleton and their wives to share her home so that they could spend time together before long separations when the husbands were sent overseas.

Her son, David Ellsworth of Washington, D.C., said his mother was not a “joiner,” and privately sought out needy people and worthy causes.

She was a registered Democrat and worked diligently in her former sales territory for presidential candidates Franklin D. Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy. Later, she became active in senior citizens groups and supported former U.S. Sen. George Murphy, a Republican. She also campaigned for former President Gerald R. Ford and for President Ronald Reagan.

Locally, she was active in state and county Republican races, especially for her favorite--San Diego County Sheriff John Duffy.

Ellsworth is survived by her son and a sister, Mary Stinson of Oceanside.

A mass will be said at Mission San Luis Rey at 11 a.m. Tuesday. Father Martin McKeon, a longtime family friend, will conduct the rites. A Rosary will be said at 7 tonight at Oceanside Mortuary.