Ellen Anna Maria Blakeway was born to Mary (Paulson) Blakeway and John Weatherly Blakeway in a farmhouse near Hawley, Minnesota, on January 22, 1920. Within a couple of years, Mary left John and took Ellen and her older brother Roy and moved to Owatonna, a small town in the southern part of the state. Legend has it that Mary loaded her two little children with all their suitcases onto a railroad handcar to make their escape from the farm. If the legend is true, young Ellen had her mother to thank for being an early template for the heroic life she would someday lead.

Ellen's real-life heroism was manifest in her ability to adapt and overcome poverty, family dissolution, and the bane of single parenthood. It was the kind of day-to-day heroism that is signified by providing for others.

In Owatonna, Mary became ill and was hospitalized, so Ellen went to live with her elder sister Clara and husband Art Wilker. With Clara as her new role model, Ellen grew to become a good student, a drum majorette, and a violinist in the high school orchestra. Her choice of instrument was emblematic: she chose violin because it was "the hardest instrument to play." Like Clara, Ellen adapted…and thrived. To make money while in school, she babysat. To get from one place to another, an energetic Ellen avoided walking, saying "Why walk, when you can run!"

Following high school, Ellen worked at Federated Insurance in Owatonna and performed in community theatre. She met Roy Wehrman when performing opposite him in Lady Windermere's Fan, by Oscar Wilde.

Ellen and Roy were married in 1942. Son John was born in 1950, and his brother James came along two-and-a-half years later. Ellen shouldered quite a burden when she and Roy divorced in 1953, choosing to move with her two young children to the Minneapolis area, where she found work as a medical technician. The little family attended Mount Olivet Lutheran Church, where the boys were baptized and Ellen sang in the choir.

Deciding that a college degree might offer better career opportunities, Ellen next moved with her boys to another small town in southern Minnesota, where she attended Mankato State College and earned a degree in Home Economics. She would have enjoyed studying the arts and music, but ultimately decided that becoming a Home Economics teacher was a more practical route to finding employment. She was right, and immediately following graduation in the summer of 1959 took a teaching position at her old alma mater- Owatonna High School. Back on familiar turf, Ellen and children became members at Trinity Lutheran Church, the very same church she had attended as a child.

In 1961 Ellen took a new job in Minneapolis, thinking her sons might have more opportunities growing up in a larger city. Once again they settled in at Mount Olivet, where the boys were confirmed and sang in the choir, and Ellen did Bible Study and volunteered at Cathedral of the Pines camp.

Following retirement from her teaching position at Richfield Junior High School in 1982, Ellen turned her energies to traveling (to Europe, Oregon, California and elsewhere). She mastered the Norwegian embroidery technique known as Hardanger, worked with the Marigolds Garden Club, played bridge, delivered Meals-on-Wheels, and volunteered at Habitat for Humanity. All the while, she kept her house in south Minneapolis neat-as-a-pin. Like sister Clara, she always kept busy. In 1998, Ellen finally sold her home and returned to Owatonna to watch over Clara (16 years her senior) and prepare for her own future. In doing so, she made good on her debt of gratitude to her sister for having raised her. But she made sure to play bridge three times a week.

Another move found Ellen in independent living at The Kenwood back in Minneapolis, where she and eighty-five friends and family celebrated her 100th birthday. Everyone in attendance believed the party would be the defining event of 2020, but, of course, that turned out not to be so. Once the pandemic lost some of its bite, she traded the Twin Cities for warmer climes and moved to an assisted-living facility in St. Louis, where she was a favorite of both staff and her neighbors. Some two years later Ellen's vertigo caused a fall and a fractured hip, hastening the end of a good and well-lived life.

Though her death was not unexpected, it still came as a surprise. When someone lives one hundred and three years on this earth, in Ellen's words they have to be a "pretty tough cookie." Yet even 'tough cookies' are not unbreakable. Someone posted a sign on the door of a deli that had recently closed for business which read: "Sometimes things end sooner than anticipated."

So it was for Ellen Anna Maria Blakeway Wehrman, a woman of faith who surrendered many personal freedoms in exchange for the welfare of her family. It doesn't get more heroic than that.

Ellen is survived by sons John and James (Lori); grandchildren Phillip (Lisa), Michael, Valery and Bailey; great granddaughter Clara; and many, many nieces, nephews (great, great-great and otherwise) and cousins.

Services will be held on August 19, 2023, at Trinity Lutheran Church, 609 Lincoln Ave. S. in Owatonna, MN, 55060. Visitation begins at 10:00am, followed by a service at 11:00.