Ellen Miljia Leivo McNeil of Monrovia, a registered nurse, artist, and mother widely loved for her gentle nonjudgmental nature, died on April 11, 2007 in Arcadia where she was hospitalized for pneumonia. She was 96.
    She was born on June 20, 1910 in Missoula, Montana to parents who had independently emigrated from Finland. She grew up in the Finnish coal mining community of Hanna, Wyoming, and began to speak English in school. Her mother died when she was 7, and she was raised by Finnish families. She graduated from Hanna High School and Los Angeles General Hospital nursing school in 1932, later serving in the Air Nurses Corps.
    In 1941 she married John Edward McNeil and retired from nursing to parent three children: Jon McNeil, principal of the three alternative schools in the Charter Oak School District, including Arrow High School; Margaret Oldaker, an English teacher at Sierra High School in Glendora; and M.E.A. McNeil Draper, a writer-illustrator of San Anselmo, CA.
    Her extensive civic contributions are memorialized in certificates of appreciation for her roles as a volunteer nurse for The Los Angeles County Health Department, a leader for the Cub Scouts, election official, officer for the Monrovia League, and P.T.A. president for Plymouth School in Monrovia – where she was awarded lifetime membership. She was also active in the Los Angeles Area Finlandia Foundation.
    When her children were grown, she returned to work as a supervising nurse, which she continued into her 80’s. She was an accomplished ceramic artist and painter. She crocheted bright colored rugs and lap blankets and made fancifully creative decorated cakes for family and friends, who remember her as always ebulliently engaged in a project.
    Later in her life she enjoyed visiting nephews, Olavi and Viljo Lehtimaki, and their families in Finland and the family farm in Kankanpaa. She subsequently traveled widely.
    She is preceded in death by her husband, brother Eugene Leivo, sister Lilja Ester Lehtimaki and nephew Olavi, both of Finland. She is survived by her three children; six grandsons, Joshua McNeil Cassady, Starlin Oldaker, Benjamin McNeil Draper, Darren McNeil, Andrew McNeil, and Jerome Draper IV; and a great granddaughter and namesake, Madison Ellen Oldaker.
    A memorial followed by an organic brunch buffet will take place on Sunday, May 20, 2007, at 10:00am at the Santa Anita Inn, 130 West Huntington Drive, Arcadia, California.