Earl Ellsworth

Son of Arizona's Largest Ostrich Farmer

Earl Ellsworth was born on February 11, 1903, in Mesa, Arizona, the seventh child of Louis Ellsworth and Josephine Lauvina Crismon. His father Louis was born in 1865 in Salt Lake City and had come to Arizona in the late 1880s, settling in Mesa during the pioneer era of Mormon colonization in the Salt River Valley.

Louis Ellsworth was, by the record of the Ellsworth Family genealogy, "one of the first cotton producers in Arizona" and "one of the largest ostrich farmers, having more than one thousand birds." He exhibited his ostriches at the Chicago World's Fair (the 1893 Columbian Exposition), a detail that places the Ellsworth family at the intersection of Arizona agriculture and the global luxury goods trade. Ostrich feathers at the turn of the century were the most expensive commodity by weight in the fashion industry, adorning the hats, boas, and fans of the Edwardian elite across Europe and America.

Earl's mother, Josephine Lauvina Crismon, was born in 1868, the daughter of Charles Crismon and Louis Bishoff. She survived her husband by twenty-three years, dying in Mesa in 1948.

Earl grew up surrounded by siblings deeply embedded in East Valley agriculture. His older sister Anna Louvina Ellsworth developed "expert skill as a classer and processor of ostrich feathers," and his brother Louis Byron Ellsworth became one of Arizona's largest cotton producers, farming in the Casa Grande area. Two of Louis Byron's sons served in World War II.

Marriage and Family

On July 14, 1922, Earl married Leona Dana, who was born on May 26, 1908, the daughter of Lafayette Dana and Adeline Riggs.

Together they had seven children: Earlene, Adeline Josephine, Virginia, Paula Dean, Dana Earle, Vicki, and Linda.

Their eldest daughter, Earlene, married Dr. Clifford James Goodman Sr. in 1940, uniting the Ellsworth agricultural heritage with the Goodman medical lineage and producing the next generation of Arizona physicians.

The Grand Marshal

When local organizers planned the first annual Chandler Ostrich Festival in 1989, a celebration that grew directly from the East Valley's ostrich-farming heritage, they asked Grandpa Earl Ellsworth, then turning eighty-six, to ride in the parade as Grand Marshal.

The invitation was fitting. Earl had grown up on one of the very farms that gave the festival its name. His father's thousand-bird flock represented the industry's scale at its Arizona peak. Decades later, as a revered patriarch, he rode through the streets of a city that had been built, in part, on the commerce of ostrich feathers.

The Singer

Beyond his agricultural roots, Earl was remembered for his musical talents. Family journals record that he kept a large envelope of sheet music and eagerly shared his experiences as a solo singer. He recalled performing at a funeral where LDS President Heber J. Grant spoke, and that the President later "complimented him highly on his music."

Later Years

Earl Ellsworth lived a remarkably long life, witnessing the vast transformation of the East Valley from sprawling cotton fields and ostrich ranches into a modern metropolitan area of millions. He passed away in 1995 at the age of ninety-two.