Ellen Warfield Rajacich

1931 - 2025

Ellen Warfield Styles was born in Chihuahua, Mexico in 1931. She was the youngest child and only daughter of Eleanor Lane Styles and Francis Holmes Styles, who served as diplomats in the US Foreign Service, moving their family to new assignments every few years. She changed schools frequently and figured out how to learn independently. The sequence of geographies in Nannan's peripatetic youth follows: Chihuahua, Mexico; Falls Church, Virginia; Lake Louise and Banff, British Columbia; Halifax, Nova Scotia; Ottawa, Ontario; Dublin, Ireland; San Antonio, Texas; Tampico, Mexico; Shanghai, China; Guayaquil, Ecuador. A particular favorite adventure was flying at age fourteen with her parents from Shannon, Ireland to Lisbon, Portugal, to Dakar, Senegal, to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, to Port of Spain, Trinidad, to New York City, to Washington DC via seaplane and plane in 1945 to avoid traveling by boat during WWII. Her passports are treasures.

Ellen graduated from the Shanghai American School in 1948, departing quickly as Mao's revolution swept across China. She attended Miami University in Ohio and transferred to and graduated from the Johns Hopkins School of Nursing, where she met the man she would marry, through mutual friends.

Ellen married Nick Rajacich in 1955. In 1959, they moved to Easton. As the partner of the President of the hospital, Ellen (and Nick) regularly hosted festive dinner parties, picnics and celebrations, welcoming friends, neighbors, new hospital staff and family. They were curious explorers and excited to try innovative ideas, customs, and cuisines. They loved music, musicals, dancing, and ice dancing and barbershop quartets. When Nick was killed in a tragic accident when she was fifty-eight, Ellen carried on, supporting her children, her grandchildren, and her community.

Ellen was a keen observer, an attentive listener and an amazing doer. She baked bread and the best chocolate chip cookies. She cooked, gardened, carpooled, sewed clothes, curtains, placemats, slipcovers, and exquisite wedding dresses for herself and her daughter and prom and bridesmaids dresses for her granddaughters.

When not caring for her family, she was always on the move. She sailed, played tennis, bicycled, skated, rowed, aerobic danced and swam water aerobics. She knitted, painted, designed, basket making, upholstered, kept bees, gardened, canned fruits and vegetables, refinished furniture and volunteered for the Red Cross, at the library, hospice, the Garden Club, Tred Avon Yacht Club and for fifty-four years at the YMCA where she was an enthusiastic and dedicated aerobics and water aerobics instructor. She exhorted her students and her family to Think Tall!

On her 91st birthday, the YMCA of the Chesapeake named the Ellen S. Rajacich Family Pool in her honor.

Ellen is survived by her children, Nicholas Rajacich (Melinda), Lynn Rajacich Osborn (Tom Brady), and Michael Rajacich (Linda); grandchildren: Rebecca Rajacich, Francis Rajacich, Ellen Dunn Osborn (Gregory), Catherine Schieffelin Osborn, Nicholas Pell Osborn, Sarah Styles Osborn, Amy Rajacich Stiegel (Evan), Michael Rajacich, Jr., Matthew Rajacich, and four great grandchildren, Russell, Nash, Remi and Annabel. Ellen was preceded in death by her husband, Nick Rajacich, her son in law, Charles Schieffelin Osborn and by her grandchildren Nicholas Jerome Rajacich and Hannah Ena Rajacich.

A celebration of her life will be held - July 26, 1 PM at the Tred Avon Yacht Club, Oxford. Transportation by boat is encouraged. The service will be live-streamed, you can find the link HERE.

In lieu of flowers, the family asks for donations to be sent to the YMCA of the Chesapeake, Easton, MD 21601 or the Delmarva Nesting Foundation, Easton, MD.