Playing the organ for 50 years at Munford, Tenn., First United Methodist Church was her way of giving back to God. Sue Bibb Ellis, an organist for the church for half a century before her retirement in 1996, died of heart failure Tuesday at her home. She was 82. Mrs. Ellis was taught to play the piano as a child in Munford and carried on her love for music until the end. "Mother did love music and after 50 years of playing at the church not once did she accept payment," said her daughter Frankie Wade of Jackson, Tenn. "She said it was her way of giving back to God." Mrs. Ellis, a graduate of University of Tennessee and a member of Kappa Delta Sorority and Mary Bryan Book Club, was a home economics teacher at Munford High School for 24 years. She married Cato Ellis and they raised three children and a niece. "She always found time for her family and her church," said Wade. She said her mother retired from playing the organ at the church in 1996. She opened a fabric store and stayed involved with the church. For her years of service without accepting payment for the countless weddings, funerals and church functions where she played, she was made an organist emeritus by the church. "Her greatest joys were her music ministry, her family and friends," Wade said. Mrs. Ellis, the widow of Cato Ellis, leaves another daughter, Clara Joc Ellis Billings of Munford; a son, Cato Ellis Jr., and a niece, whom she raised, Susan Bass Griffin, both of Munford, six grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.
Services will be at 10:30 a.m. Friday at First United Methodist Church in Munford, with burial in Helen Crigger Cemetery in Munford. Munford Funeral Home has charge. (By Yolanda Jones, published in The Commercial Appeal 6/10/1999)