William Lee Ewens

William Lee Ewens, 82, of Blue Springs, MO, passed away April 3, 2021 at his home at The Parkway Senior Living Apartments in Blue Springs, MO.

William, known as Bill, was born on November 14, 1938 at home, assisted by a midwife, in Hallsville, MO to Albert Lee Ewens and Edith Lurlene (Street) Ewens. Bill was the first of four children, with three sisters to follow, Mary Ann (Ewens) Ferguson, Doris Jean (Ewens) Pulido and Carol Elaine (Ewens) Jeffries.

Bill’s mom was a bell telephone operator in Columbia for 18 cents an hour, and his dad an auto mechanic. He grew up in Hallsville, Mo, in a six-room house located on a seven-acre tract of land at the northwest edge of the small town. Their only source of water was a well located about 15 feet from the house. There were no bathrooms inside the house, only an outdoor toilet. They had one cow milked daily, one hog butchered each fall, 15-20 egg-laying hens, 50-75 frying chickens that roamed about the yard in summer, and a dog named “Shorty.”

After struggling with dyslexia in his early years of school, he found himself one of the best students in class from the seventh grade on. He graduated from both high school with grades in the upper tenth of my his class. In addition to being a strong student, he also lettered in all three major sports—football, basketball, and track.

Bill attended Tarkio College on a football scholarship and received a Bachelor of Science degree with a dual major, psychology and sociology, in 1960. During his summer breaks from Tarkio, he worked around the country both to make money for college and to see America. After his freshman year, he worked as a mailman in Los Angeles, after his sophomore year in the Idaho Sawtooth mountains building mountain trails for firefighters, and after his junior and senior years in Cleveland, Ohio at Belfaire, a treatment center for emotionally disturbed children. During these summers, he saw the Pacific Ocean for the first time, and fought a forest fire. Well, actually, he ate smores in front of a burning tree to keep warm in the deep forest before the brave firefighting crew extinguished the blaze.

After his undergraduate program concluded, Bill earned a Master of Sociology degree from Omaha University (now the University of Nebraska-Omaha) in 1962.

Bill met Sandra Jean Perry, then a social worker, while both were employed at the Kansas City welfare office. He said that he saw her as a beauty queen—kind, compassionate, and inspiring to work with, and that he knew she would be a great mother and a lifelong soulmate. Bill married Sandy at Kensington Avenue Baptist Church in Kansas City, MO on September 28, 1963, after becoming engaged just six weeks after they began dating.

After the wedding, the pair moved to Iowa where Bill began working on his PhD. He successfully finished his program, earning a PhD in Sociology from the University of Iowa as the first and only PhD candidate at the time to pass their comprehensive examinations with just an oral exam, as the faculty committee felt he was so good that he didn’t need to complete the written exams.

Following interviews with five universities, Bill and Sandy chose to move to East Lansing, MI, where Bill began teaching at Michigan State University. They lived in East Lansing for over 30 years, where they had fulfilling careers and, more importantly, adopted and raised two children, Jason Lee Ewens and Erin Lynn Brown (Ewens).

Bill’s family had an enormous garden in the side yard of their house that required many hours of weeding, harvesting and packaging, much to Erin and Jason’s annoyance. The family biked, camped, studied, played and grew together. When Jason and Erin were kids, Bill and Sandy took them on many regular family vacations to the Amana Colonies in Iowa and the Land Between the Lakes in Kentucky, and, of course, to Missouri to visit their grandparents. Bill survived brain cancer in 1982, tightening the family bond more than ever.

Bill felt his best quality was to encourage their kids to just be themselves and sing their own song. One of his worst qualities, according to him, however, was that he was so busy at work that he spent too little time with them as they grew up. He encouraged his children to be there physically as much as possible for his grandchildren, and they have heeded his words.

After the birth of their first granddaughter, Connor Kaylee Ewens, Bill and Sandy retired and moved back to Kansas City to be closer to their family.

During the next few years Bill’s family would also welcome grandson Logan William Ewens, and granddaughters Marleigh Sophia Brown and Seraphina Kennedy Brown.

One of Bills’s true joys in life was being with his grandchildren and witnessing their accomplishments. He was very proud that they play the piano, enjoy tennis, are active in the arts, and are creative thinkers.

Despite only once leaving the state of Missouri before he went to college, he eventually traveled the globe. All of his grandchildren love to travel the way he did. Bill loved to travel, and after retiring he and Sandy traveled with his sister-in-law, Marsha Liggett and her husband, Bob, to many different cities across the United States, Europe, the Mediterranean, and the Caribbean. During their marriage, he and Sandy also visited the Soviet Union Russia, Asia, Australia, New Zealand and Fiji. He was very excited when Erin and Frank moved to Singapore in 2015, and hoped that someday he would be able to visit, but sadly Sandy’s health would never permit them to make the journey. He was a true world traveler and instilled this love into his children and grandchildren.

Bill is survived by his son Jason Ewens, and his wife, Darla of Blue Springs; his daughter, Erin Brown, and her husband Frank of Fullinsdorf, Switzerland; his grandchildren, Connor Ewens, Logan Ewens, Marleigh Brown, and Seraphina Brown; his sisters, Doris and her husband Rudy Pulido of St. Louis, and Carol and her husband Jerry Jeffries of Las Vegas; his nieces and nephews, Gary Ferguson, Donny Ferguson, Terry Ferguson, Shannon Jeffries, Wendy Jeffries, Scott Pulido, Jennifer (Pulido) Starks.

Bill was preceded in death by his loving wife, Sandra J. Ewens. Bill called Sandy the joy of his life for 53 years and 5 months when she passed away.

He is also preceded in death by his parents, Albert L. Ewens and Edith L. Ewens, his sister, Mary A. Ferguson, and his niece Angie Ferguson.

As Erin recalls, Bill was the epitome of a loving husband, father and grandfather. He was a trusted and inclusive friend, a hardworking professional, a voracious reader, an encouraging leader, a talented write, a guiding light, a staunch advocate for equal rights for all, a willing participant in new adventures, and a full-time believer in goodness.

Should friends desire, contributions may be sent to the Stowers Institute for Medical Research, 1000 E 50th St. Kansas City MO, 64110 www.stowers.org/support , or Habitat for Humanity at https://www.habitat.org/donate/

A Memorial will be held at 9:00 a.m. on Saturday, July 24, 2021, in the Memorial Garden of the Simpson House next to All Souls Unitarian Universalist Church, 4501 Walnut St, Kansas City, MO 64111