Ella Ward

Ella Ward, a loving wife, mother, grandmother and great-grandmother, who spent a two-decade career at New York City Transit, went home to be with her Lord and Savior on June 30, 2020 in Lexington, S.C.

An ever-grinning peacemaker, Ella was the matriarch of her family and a lifelong woman of faith who enjoyed word searches, current events and the Temptations, as well as traveling and card games with her friends and loved ones.

Ella was a fashion lover and liked to buy multiple versions of her favorite outfits in different colors. She wore a blue sequined, floor-length dress to cut a three-tiered cake with her husband, Lonnie Ward Jr., at their 60th anniversary in 2018.

Ella Hardy was born on July 30, 1936 in Union, New Jersey, just west of Newark. She was the youngest of six children born to Joseph Hardy, a long-haul truck driver, and Betty Jackson Hardy Overton, a homemaker.

Nicknamed “Tookie” as a child, she was “always smiling, no matter what,” said her sister Ardelia “Delie” Ruff, of Long Island, N.Y. They grew up in Newark, N.J. and Washington Heights, N.Y., and Ella used to do her older siblings’ homework.  In fact, her brother Lorenzo “Renzie” of NYC, who was two years older said “I would have never gotten out of school if it wasn’t for Ella...she did all my homework...and I got all A’s...that girl was real smart!”

Ella wrote love letters to suitors for Ardelia, despite being four years younger.  “I used to tell her, ‘Make it sound good, but not too mushy,’” Ardelia said. “She was a good sister, all the way around. You couldn’t find another sister like her. We had a lot of adventures.”

Ella was the first one she knew to own a television -- a tiny, black-and-white one with only one channel that she won in a contest. The neighborhood kids would come over to the Hardy’s to watch “The Lone Ranger” and “Amos ‘n’ Andy.”

Ella graduated with honors from George Washington High School in 1953 and got a job in data entry for the Borden Ice Cream Co., where she worked for a couple of years before beginning a 20-year career at New York City Transit.  Ella started her career as a Railroad Clerk selling tokens in various booths throughout the system and working her way up the ladder to become a Station Supervisor Level 2.  During her time in Supervision, she worked as an Instructor in the Employee Development and Training Department where she not only trained newly hired Cleaners, but Railroad Clerks as well.  On March 14, 1988, her daughter Karyn, had the privilege to be in one of her training classes.  She is remembered to this day, by all of her students, as being one of the best!

After meeting a handsome Marine at his brother’s wedding and spending a few weeks together, Ella wrote to him three times a week while he served overseas in Morocco, and the two felt like they knew each other by the time he returned. She married the love of her life, Lonnie, in New York on June 14, 1958. The couple enjoyed visiting friends, going to the movies and watching political television.

“I told her I wished I had just half of what they have,” Ardelia said. “You don’t find them every day like that. We just knew from the beginning: Lonnie was supposed to marry Ella.”

They raised two daughters, Denine and Karyn, and lived in homes in Brooklyn, N.Y.; East Elmhurst, N.Y.; Darlington, S.C.; Spring Hill, Fla.; and Columbia, S.C. over the course of 62 years of loving marriage. Unable to afford college herself, Ella made sure her daughters were afforded that opportunity.

“Mom was a kind hearted and witty woman,” her daughters wrote. “She was a voracious reader, she had a thirst for knowledge, and she loved her husband, children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and all of her sisters and brothers, nieces, nephews and cousins.”

Karyn, who lives in Harlem, N.Y., remembered fondly how the family liked to gather and cook for days to mark any occasion at Ella’s sister Sara’s house. “Mom and her siblings were always ready to have a gr  eat time,” she said.

Denine, of Columbia, S.C., recalled how her mother stayed in her dorm room while visiting her at USC during a long weekend. “She slept on the bed, and I slept on the box spring,” she said.

Ella and Lonnie loved to travel, often loading their grandchildren into their van before dawn and hitting the open road. Games of Po-Ke-No with their friends and family provided countless hours of entertainment. The only thing they enjoyed more than doting on their daughters was buying clothes and other gifts for their grandchildren.

They were longtime members of the Cherry Grove Missionary Baptist Church family in Darlington, S.C., and were involved in the Marriage Ministry and the choir, before moving to Columbia to be closer to family 10 years ago.

In addition to her husband Lonnie Jr., daughters, Denine Ward-Johnson (Glennith) and Karyn Ward, Ella is survived by her sister Ardelia (John, deceased), her brother Malachi “Lorenzo” Hardy (Gloria), six grandchildren (Dominique Johnson, Brianna Johnson, Christian Johnson, Gabrielle Johnson, Krysta James and Marlayna Fennell), two great-grandchildren (Amir Anderson and Armoni Miller (Seth) and a host of nieces and nephews and many other extended family members. She was predeceased by her brothers Guy Hardy (Lula, also deceased) and Joseph Hardy (Madeline Hardy of Newport News, VA) and her sister Sara Chalmers (Robert, also deceased).

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