The Franklin Reporter & Advocate Eight Villages, One Community
It is with heavy hearts that we announce the peaceful passing of Elaine Ellmer Morris, 79, of Bridgewater, on September 9.
Born February 16, 1946 in Newark, NJ to the late Anthony and Idamae Ellmer, she grew up the oldest of three siblings in Irvington, and spent the majority of her summers down the shore with her grandparents, the late Charles and Florence Helmstaedter, at their shore house in Beach Haven, Long Beach Island.
After graduating from Irvington High School in 1963, she went on to become a registered nurse from the Newark Presbyterian Hospital School of Nursing in 1966.
Elaine proudly worked as a nurse for more than 40 years in many fields. However, her greatest contribution to the profession was working as a nurse for Hospice of Morris County.
Elaine was first married in 1972 to Salvatore Alifano and had two children, Tommy and Karen. She very much enjoyed being home to raise her family in Rockaway, so much that she was often cited as saying that these “were the best years of her life.” Elaine remarried in 2000 and retired to Columbia, South Carolina shortly thereafter with her second husband, late Joseph H. Morris, Jr.
Elaine returned to the Great Garden State and its beautiful Jersey shore in 2021 and enjoyed the final years of her life surrounded by friends in her adult community and spending time with her family.
She is survived by her daughter Karen Alifano and son, Tom Alifano and his wife, Claudia Alifano. Also surviving are her brother Robert Ellmer and sister Anita Covel; four grandsons, Philip and Carlo Alifano, and Rocky and Giovanni Trautmann; nieces Holly Ellmer and Suzie Mitchell, and nephew John Stanek IV.
A memorial gathering will be held from 2-4 p.m. September 13, with a memorial service beginning at 4:30 p.m., at the Gleason Funeral Home, 1360 Hamilton Street.
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