Ellen Revelle; helped lead push for campus in San Diego; at 98

Although her husband, Roger Revelle, was considered a major force in the struggle to persuade the University of California to create the campus in 1960, she was viewed as the university's unofficial ambassador and founded several campus facilities.

A wily recruiter, she relied on charm, grace, and the eye-popping views from her coastal home to court potential faculty members.

"He was the front man, and she was sort of the warm and supportive person who helped the recruitment process," said William Revelle, one of her four children. "They used to invite candidates for positions to La Jolla to showcase the beautiful ocean views. They called them 'seduction parties.' "

After establishing the university, the Revelles moved to Cambridge, Mass., and Roger Revelle was the founding director of the Harvard University Center for Population Studies. He taught at the university from 1964 to 1975.

From his work there, he was considered by many to be the father of the modern theory of global warming and a mentor to former vice president Al Gore.

In a statement, Gore called Mrs. Revelle "a brilliant woman, passionate supporter of the arts and education [whose] legacy of service to La Jolla and UCSD will long be remembered."

Roger Revelle was also a former director of UCSD's Scripps Institution of Oceanography, and she was "truly its first lady," said Tony Haymet, director of the marine institution. It was founded in the early 1900s with support from her great-aunt, Ellen Browning Scripps, a pioneering philanthropist.

"Colleagues come through looking for the magic recipe" for UCSD's success, Haymet said. "I think it's Roger and Ellen who sort of set us on this path [that fosters] the spirit of excitement for exploration and discovery."

For years, Mrs. Revelle held a spring tea on the lawn of her home for female graduates of UCSD's Revelle College, named for her husband in 1965. Roger died in 1991 at 82.

As a member of the first class to graduate from Claremont's Scripps College, in 1931, she remained devoted to the school for women founded in 1926 by her great-aunt. Ellen Revelle served on the school's board of trustees for 50 years.

She was born Ellen Virginia Clark in 1910 in her great-aunt's guesthouse in La Jolla and grew up in Pasadena, Calif.

Her father, Rex B. Clark, developed the opulent Lake Norconian Resort in 1929 in what is now Norco. Her mother was the former Grace Scripps, daughter of James E. Scripps, who founded what is now the Detroit News.

At a Valentine's Day dance at Scripps, Ellen met Roger, who was attending another Claremont campus, Pomona College. Soon after she earned her bachelor's degree in psychology, they married in 1931.

They spent a year in Norway in the mid-1930s and also lived in Washington, D.C., before permanently settling in La Jolla in 1976.

In 1993, Mrs. Revelle married Rollin Eckis, a former Atlantic Richfield Co. executive who had been a colleague of Roger's. Eckis died at 94 in 1999.

During the summer, Mrs. Revelle swam daily in the ocean until she was 95. Her family described her as "witty, elegant" and "cutthroat" at dominoes. Devoted to classical music, she attended her last concert the Saturday night before she died.

Hers was "an American life," Haymet said, "the dream lived at full pace, with gusto and accomplishment."

In addition to her son, William of Evanston, Ill., she leaves three daughters, Anne Shumway of Cambridge; Mary Ellen Paci of New York City; and Carolyn of Sausalito, Calif.; 11 grandchildren; and 18 great-grandchildren.