Carleen Robinson Wilcox Ellis earned her B.S. in Nursing from Wheaton College, Wheaton, Illinois in 1951, and then later her M.S. at the University of Colorado in Medical-Surgical Nursing, Boulder, Colorado in 1960.

Through the years, she took additional post-graduate classes at the University of Arizona, Arizona State University and Yavapai College, where she also was on the teaching staffs.

Prior to her academic positions, she held various nursing positions beginning in 1949 at West Suburban Hospital in Oak Park, IL, then in St. Paul, Minnesota. After that she moved to Arizona for the bulk of her nursing and teaching years.

Having been a nurse for a decade, she chose to share her experience, her thoughtfulness, and her knowledge with younger nurses and nurses-to-be. Initially she taught from 1960 to 1967 at University of Arizona in Tucson, Good Samaritan Hospital in Phoenix, Phoenix College, and Mesa Community College.

But then she had long-term positions at Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, as Assistant Professor of Nursing from 1967 to 1976 and then her final position of Instructor of Nursing from 1976 1991 at Yavapai College, Prescott, AZ, from which she retired.

She earned several awards, among which were 1974 Nurse of the Year, District #12, Arizona Nurses' Association; 1976 Tempe Woman in Medicine and Health Care Delivery, a Bicentennial salute, Tempe Republican Women; 1990 Arizona Nurse of the Year, AzNA, American Nurses' Association; and 1997 Yavapai College Emeritus Status for Lifetime Achievement.

She was preceded in death by her father, R. Carl Robinson; her mother, Gladys Franklin Wilbur Robinson; her beloved first husband, Lt. Stanton Granville Wilcox, USAF, who did not return from an aviation combat mission during the Korean War and was never found. As well, she was preceded in death later by her ex-husband, Ormiston Tupper Ellis.

Carleen is survived by a maternal cousin, Clair Wilbur VanWirt, and by paternal cousins Ann Cornell, Jane (and Ken) Huffer, and Jo Ann (and Ray) Brooks. She is also survived by two very special &near-children& of theirs that she and her husband took in, parented, and then followed, prayed for, and assisted through the years, Copper Rain and Brad J. Berg.

Details later for a Celebration of Life Service.