Rose Ellis, antiwar advocate, teacher; at 94

Rose (Keane) Ellis was a woman with the courage of her convictions.

"If she thought something was wrong, she wanted to fix it," her son, William "Duke" Ellis of Marston Mills said yesterday. "She was a lifelong advocate of people in need."

Mrs. Ellis, a longtime Cambridge kindergarten teacher who was active in the civil rights and antiwar movements, died of cardiopulmonary arrest Friday in the nursing facility at Carleton-Willard Village in Westwood. She was 94.

"If she saw somebody was hungry, she'd do something about it, " said her son. "She'd say, 'Let's get a turkey.' "

Mrs. Ellis had her son deliver the food or recruited students at Harvard or Tufts for the project.

"She made people feel special," her daughter, Mary Frances Ellis of Concord said yesterday. "She treated everybody as if they were in her kindergarten class."

Her son recalled her demonstrating against the Vietnam War in Newton, where she lived for many years, while he was serving in the Navy. "She carried a sign that said, 'US Troops Out of Vietnam,' and people would throw pennies at her."

Her daughter remembered traveling with her to an antiwar demonstration in Washington D.C. when she was 13 years old. "We were surrounded by hippies and people smoking pot, and there I was with my mother. "

Mrs. Ellis graduated from Lesley College and earned a master's degree in education at Boston State College.

In 1944, she married William H. Ellis Jr., the owner of W.H. Ellis & Sons, a wharf and bridge building company. He died in 1980.

Mrs. Ellis taught at the Abraham Lincoln and Roberts schools in Cambridge for many years. She used a Native American motif in the classroom. "She taught kids from the projects and children of graduate students from all over the world, but in her class everyone was an Indian," said her son.

Mrs. Ellis grew up on Columbia Road in Dorchester and as a child rode horses in Franklin Park. Her father, John Keane, who died when she was 13, was a salesman for Ivers and Pond piano makers. Her mother, Mary Fitzgerald, was a first cousin of Rose Kennedy and niece of Boston Mayor "Honey" Fitzgerald. She attended Dorchester High School.

As a young woman, Mrs. Ellis had a close association with the Kennedy children. She actively supported the political campaigns of the Kennedy sons over the years and was a guest at the JFK wedding, inauguration, and other presidential events.

Presidential historian Doris Kearns Goodwin, who wrote "The Fitzgeralds and The Kennedys," inter viewed Mrs. Ellis, who offered a unique perception of the Fitzgerald family. "I remember that she had terrific insight into the dynamics of the family life of the Fitzgeralds as well as a warm and vital personality," Goodwin said in an e-mail yesterday.

Mrs. Ellis suffered from anxiety disorder and claustrophobia, according to her son. In 1961, when she made a pilgrimage to Ireland to visit the homes of her ancestors, she made the trip by ship, but had to return by plane. When the plane was taxiing down the runway in Dublin she realized she couldn't endure the long confinement and asked to be taken off the plane. Her son said the headline in the next day's Dublin Times read "President Kennedy's Cousin Refuses to leave Ireland."

In the 1950s and '60s, Mrs. Ellis hosted parties attended by Cardinal Richard Cushing and Mayor John B. Hynes of Boston. The evening often ended in sing-alongs.

"She was great fun, witty and charming and quintessentially Irish," said her longtime friend, the Rev. George Fitzgerald, a Paulist priest from San Francisco.

"She was a woman who saw things in black and white," he said. "She knew who she was and what she believed in, and she wasn't shy about telling you."

Besides her son and daughter, Mrs. Ellis leaves one granddaughter and three grandsons.

Fitzgerald will officiate at her funeral Mass at 10 a.m. today in St. Ignatius Church in Newton. Burial will be in Holyhood Cemetery in West Roxbury.