Ella Elizabeth Horst

While it may, or may not, take a village to raise a child, the life of Ella Elizabeth Horst demonstrated that one person is indeed capable of raising an entire village. Ella’s journey through this life began in Telluride, Colorado on September 13, 1920, where she was born into a mining family, to William and Eunice Smock. As a young girl, Ella moved with her family by horse-drawn milk cart from Idaho Springs, Colorado, to West Los Angeles, California, where she lived for the next 70 years. Growing up in a much different world than today, she explored the rural avocado orchards and tomato fields of West L.A. with her sisters and brother, and she loved playing on the beach and visiting the horse corrals along the city’s only paved street--Santa Monica Boulevard. Eventually, Ella met and married Donald Horst, and had two children, William and Donna. Together, the four of them worked diligently to create a strong, tight, and loving family that could endure for eternity. The special spirit that they made the center of their home was felt by visitors who quickly became friends and then surrogate family. These values that they nurtured in their home persisted as Ella’s children began families of their own, and formed a legacy that would transcend generations. As her children began new journeys with their own families, Ella was ever-present to celebrate milestones and be involved in the events of the growing next generation. Rather than accepting that she had dutifully fulfilled her calling as a mother, she reveled in the new calling of being a grandmother. By age 76, Ella had every right to wait for her now grown grandchildren to dote on her, but with energy and a passion for life, she left California and moved in with her children and grandchildren. In these new homes, first in Utah, then in Nevada, she further molded character, helped children find their voices and identities, and used her sharp mind, wit, wisdom, and enduring faith to create more communities that reflected her philosophies of discipline, dignity, and an enduring optimism and hope in humanity. For the next 20 years, people in these new locations would be continually drawn to the strong spirit Ella radiated. Ella was a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, where her proudest callings, most humbly carried out, were as a missionary in Des Moines, Iowa with her husband, Don, from 1982 to 1983, as a temple worker, and as a visiting teacher. She wrote cards and visited with her Relief Society sisters until the last days of her life, ever eager to serve the Lord by faithfully living and physically sharing the Gospel that had so richly blessed her life. Ten of Ella’s grandchildren and eight of her great grandchildren (and counting) served LDS missions in Germany, Finland, South Korea, Switzerland, Austria, Hungary, Norway, Panama, California, Arizona, New Jersey, Kenya, Idaho, Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina, Brazil, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic. While Ella was the final member of both her childhood family and her own family to finish the journey through life (she was preceded in death by her husband, son, and daughter), and was also preceded in death by one grandchild, one great grandchild, and two great-great grandchildren, she is survived by four generations of family, comprising 78 children, grandchildren, great grandchildren, and great-great grandchildren who proudly carry on her legacy in their own lives. When she finished her journey through this life surrounded by friends and family on Wednesday, October 26, 2016, Ella Horst’s influence and example had spread across 10 decades of human history, and the lives she had nurtured and touched had, in turn, carried her legacy of patience, faith, and love to the far corners of this world. As a result, she has, in a very real way, meaningfully impacted lives, and positively affected the course, of many thousands of people. Ella will be laid to rest at Pierce Brothers Valhalla Memorial Park in North Hollywood, California.