Rev. Price Ellis

Rev. Price Ellis, born 2 June 1933, in Skene, Mississippi, in the heart of the Mississippi Delta, to the parents of Mary and Bowen Ellis, the second child in a family of four siblings, Price began his journey through life. Like the terrain of a far distant land that would have a significant impact upon his life, there were peaks of success, joy and happiness as well as valleys filled with challenges and difficulties. By Price’s fourth birthday his father had died and Mr. Bennie Taylor married Mary, making the family complete once again, sometime around his fifth or sixth birthday. While the Norman Rockwell portrait of childhood features children engaged in some form of play or adventure, Price spent his toiling in the cotton fields filling a gunny sack that was considerably bigger than him as part of a sharecropping family. There were some moments of lightheartedness and fun like when his brother Walter goaded him into saying something he got a whipping for; when he and his sister Mosie almost burned the house down when their mother had gone to town; the science experiments the children conducted; and the time he spent with his cousin Lawrence. In the fall of 1946, the family decided that they had had enough of living as sharecroppers and the lack of a good education, so the family moved to Kansas City. A country boy living on the north end of Kansas City, Price knew absolutely nothing about “putting up your dukes” to defend himself. He soon met and befriended a lifelong pal, Herman Gant, who was quite skilled at boxing. At 13 years of age, Price should have completed the 7th grade but because he had spent his formative years picking cotton instead of attending school, he was just completing the 5th grade. Not being afraid of work, his after-school jobs included working as a roustabout in a lumber yard, as a dishwasher at Garozzo’s and as a gas station attendant. It’s June of 1950, all his friends at R.T. Coles had completed their junior year of high school and are looking forward to their senior year but Price was going into his sophomore year and he’s 17 years old! His cousin Lawrence is in the service, stationed in Japan and has been writing, telling him about all the fun and adventures he is having. Swayed by Lawrence’s letters and his peers graduating from high school, Price decides to join the Army and because he is underage, his mother must sign the documents allowing him to enlist on his birthday. No sooner than the ink is dry on his enlistment papers he received a letter from Lawrence saying “Hold up on that enlistment cousin. People are shooting at one another in Korea, it’s serious and that’s not a good thing.” While in basic training at Ft. Riley, Kansas the Korean War breaks out and as an infantryman he knows that’s where he is headed. Price is in country and the North Koreans are literally about to push the United Nations forces into the Sea of Japan while engaged in the Battle of the Pusan Perimeter. He’s given the task of being the forward observer’s radioman and he proclaims to his platoon sergeant, “You’re trying to get me killed.” The tide of battle changes and the UN forces push the North Koreans all the way north to the Yalo River, on the border with China. China enters the fray and pushes the UN forces back to the 38th parallel. Being the radioman turns out to be a blessing because he has a team of soldiers always protecting him, never has to fire his weapon and leaves the Korean War combat zone after a year of service with only a scratch. Price spends the remainder of his enlistment getting his GED and serving as an instructor at Fort Ord, California. After being discharged from the military in 1953, Price returns to Kansas City and he works at GM, one of the packing houses and Bendix. He meets and marries Stella in May of 1954 and shortly thereafter he is called into the ministry and serves as an Associate Minister at St. Stephens Baptist Church. Their first child, Stephen is born in November of1955. Sometime in February of 1956 Price realizes that his opportunity to use his GI education benefits may have been squandered because most colleges have already started their spring semester and you have to use it within three years of being discharged from the service. A coworker at Bendix tells him about Central Missouri State College in Warrensburg, Missouri that is on the quarter system and that he still has time to enroll. He enrolls at CMSC and commutes back and forth between Warrensburg and Kansas City with another student his freshman year. In 1957 Price is still attending CMSC and begins serving as Pastor of Shiloh Baptist Church in Warrensburg where the family lives and a second child, Stanley, becomes the newest family member. The spring of 1960 is a very busy time for Pastor Ellis. Vivian is born, Pastor Ellis graduates from college and is the first African American student to attend CMSC all four years, moves the family back to Kansas City and starts teaching at Manual High School. In 1962 he earned his Master’s Degree in Education from CMSC and in 1963 Valerie, the fourth child in the family, is born. He teaches at Manual until 1968, for one year at Martin Luther King Junior High School in the 1968 – 1969 school year and then in the fall of 1969 starts teaching at Penn Valley Community College. The family ritual of traveling to and from Warrensburg, MO each Sunday also stopped in 1970 when Pastor Ellis resigns from Shiloh Baptist Church and returns to St. Stephens Baptist Church as an Associate Minister. In 1978 he left St. Stephens Baptist Church and helped establish Cleveland Avenue Baptist Church where he was pastor for 39 years. Through his ministry and teachings Pastor Ellis shared the story of Christ’s love and salvation with thousands of people, baptized as many; counselled those that needed assistance and direction not only on a personal level but for one’s spiritual well-being also; visited the jailed, sick and shut in; gave to those in need; prayed for and with anyone and everyone; married thousands of couples; prayed for newborns; presided over funerals and comforted those that lost loved ones; and tried to love everyone as Christ taught us to love one another. Although Pastor Ellis hadn’t taught any classes in years, he retired from Penn Valley CC in 2017. Pastor Ellis traveled the globe. Besides Korea and Japan, he has been to Mexico, Canada, the countries of the Holy Land, Egypt, Germany, France, Italy and several countries of the Caribbean Islands. As for travel in the United States, the only states he has not spent time in are North and South Dakota, Maine, Vermont and New Hampshire. His hobbies included photography, carpentry (he was the DIY guy before it became popular), tinkering on automobiles, listening to Country and Western music, collecting pens, knives and watches, reading a variety of history books, spending too much time and money at the RSO store in Independence, MO as well as reading and studying the Bible. Pastor Ellis is preceded in death by his parents Mary and Bennie Taylor, his brother Walter, his sister Christine and his son Stanley. Celebrating his life are his wife of 70 years Stella, his son Stephen (Kim), daughters Vivian and Valerie, grandchildren Nia and Jourdan, his sister Mosie, a host of nieces, nephews and other relatives, current and former members of Cleveland Ave Baptist Church, his lifelong friend Mr. Herman Gant, former students and faculty at MLK Jr High School, Manual High School, Penn Valley Community College and friends. Thank you, Dad. May the Lord bless you and keep you; may the Lord make His face to shine upon you and be gracious unto you; may the Lord lift up His countenance upon you and give you peace, this day and forever more. Amen. Funeral Services will be held on Friday, October 4, 2024, at 11:00 A.M. at Cleveland Avenue Baptist Church 2853 Cleveland Avenue KCMO 64128. Interment: Leavenworth National Cemetery on October 7, 2024, at 10:00 A.M. Visitation: 9-11:00 A.M. at the Church. Arrangements entrusted to Lawrence A. Jones & Sons Funeral Chapels. Condolence may be shared on our website lawrenceajones.com.

Rev. Price Ellis

June 2, 1933 - September 22, 2024