Joe Ellis
Reverend Joe Ellis and his wife moved from Vancouver to Old Crow in 1941. They had a year’s worth of supplies and he earned a monthly stipend of $100 as the parish minister. Ellis visited his congregation on snowshoes behind a dog team and earned a nickname of “Old Crow Joe.” At the Sunday church service in Old Crow, they sang hymns once in Gwitchin and once in English. The couple’s first baby died in Old Crow. In 1948, Reverend Ellis and his wife moved to Carcross and he became the principal/clergyman in charge of the Chooutla Indian Residential School. Clara and Peter Tizya had just been hired at the school and they had more children than the Ellis’ two boys. Ellis gave the Tizyas the former principal’s residence and cleaned up the former hen house and lived there until a new residence could be built [around 1949]. Ellis allowed the children to use their own language to speak with one another, but English was spoken in class. He took his turn as night watchman through the night, to make sure the dormitory wood stoves were hot without danger to the long stretches of stove pipe. In the summer he started tending the garden at 5am. Mrs. Ellis was a registered nurse and she also cooked when Mrs. Tizya was off duty. Rev. Ellis was replaced in 1951 by Rev. Charles Stanger.1)