Eleanor Jane Zins Walker
November 11, 1924 ~ July 27, 2021
Ellie Walker, Colorado artist, loving mother, and widow of W.Z.F. (Fred) Walker, passed away peacefully from respiratory failure on July 27, 2021 at her home at the Village at Belmar in Lakewood. She was 96.
Ellie was born Eleanor Jane Zins on November 11, 1924, a native of State College, Pennsylvania, where she lived for her first 23 years, until the day she was married.
Ellie went to Penn State, just blocks from her childhood home, and was active in the Penn State Players and Thespian drama groups designing theater sets, costumes and stage posters. She designed brochures for the Ag School and worked at the Ordinance Research Lab, a WWII torpedo lab located on campus. It was at Penn State that she met and then married her husband, Fred, at St. Paul’s Methodist Church in State College. They were together for 73 years before his passing in 2020.
Ellie graduated “early” from Penn State in 1944 with BA degrees in Art and Drama. Rather than remain for her June graduation, she took a trip west with her brother’s wife and her nephew, to pick up her brother returning after WWII into California. This was her first exposure to the beauty of the West, and the thereafter the Rocky Mountains became the favored subject of her paintings.
A resident of Wheat Ridge for many years, she was an active member of Mountainside Art Guild and Foothills Art Guild. Besides painting, Ellie was an avid birder, loved gardening, decorating, the Homesteader group at church, and swimming at the Rec Center with friends.
Ellie was a Realist artist, and lives on through over 800 paintings now hanging in houses all over the world. Known for her distinctive treatment of trees, her paintings involved elements of nature, mountains, clouds, birds, butterflies, flowers and fauna. She had broad interests in geology, architecture, and archaeology that she often incorporated into her artwork.
She is survived by her three children, Tamie Walker Bulow, Ted Walker (Annie), and Wendy Walker Erich (Dave); her six beloved grandchildren Justin Walker (Katie), Nick Bulow (Erika), Katie Hays (Wes), Whitney Walker, Jed Walker (Allison) and Scott Erich (Emily). She was a great-grandmother to eleven children.
Funeral arrangements will be postponed due to Covid.
In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to:
Wheat Ridge United Methodist Church
7530 W 38th Ave, Wheat Ridge, CO 80033
Ellie was my dear friend, She was kind to everyone, I will miss her.
Dorothy Pate
Ellie loved to come over to our house and bird watch .Ellie joined some of our family barbecues . What a wonderful lady she was .