Ellen Marie Corey

It is with great sadness that we announce the passing of our beloved wife, mother, grandmother, and sister, Ellen Marie Corey on Wednesday, May 6, 2020, at the age of 80. Ellen has fought a brave battle with Parkinson’s disease and Lewy Body Dementia for the past 4 years. She was born to Vincent and Pearl Giedd on a farm in Tabor, South Dakota, on Monday, May 29, 1939. Shortly after she was born, they moved to another farm in Avon, SD where she lived the life of a farm girl attending a rural elementary one-room schoolhouse before going to live in town with her grandparents to attend high school.

Graduating from Avon High School in 1958, Ellen moved to Omaha, NE to attend Flight Attendants School. Finding out that being a Flight Attendant was not her idea of a career, she became a Transcription Typist for an insurance company. She met her loving husband, Garth Corey, an Air Force NCO, in Omaha. They married in June 1962, and she became an Air Force wife, a new career that she cherished. During that career, she lived with her family in many places and volunteered at Air Force Family Services before her husband retired from the Air Force in Albuquerque, NM in 1979. After the children grew up, Ellen began a new career as an administrative assistant for a company in Albuquerque, retiring in 2006. Following her retirement, she became a world traveler with her husband, visiting all seven continents. She has been inside both the Arctic Circle and the Antarctic Circle, and visited numerous other noteworthy destinations including Machu Picchu; the Great Wall of China; St. Petersburg, Russia; Barcelona and Madrid, Spain; Lisbon, Portugal; Marrakesh, Morocco; Sydney and Ayers Rock, Australia; Rome and Venice, Italy; Hong Kong, China; the Great Barrier Reef;  Hawaii, Tahiti, London, Paris, among her many other destinations. She enjoyed over 21 ocean cruises to the far corners of the earth. She also enjoyed over 14 river cruises on rivers in the United States and China. She was a great traveler.

She is survived by her husband of 57 wonderful and loving years, Garth Corey; sister, Eva Johnson of Mitchell, SD; son, Russell and wife Jesa, grandson R-Jay; granddaughter, Jazzlyn; son, Randall and wife Leslie, grandson Cameron; and daughter, Ramona and husband Michael, granddaughter Katelyn, grandson Andrew. Ellen was preceded in death by her parents, Vincent and Pearl Giedd; brother, Earl; stepfather, Roy Hepler; and numerous aunts and uncles in South Dakota.

She will be interred at the National Cemetery in Santa Fe, NM. A Celebration of Ellen’s Life will be scheduled after the restrictions are lifted for the current COVID-19 pandemic.