Ellen Dorothy Coffin passed away surrounded by family on August 10. She was born on April 26, 1932 at "Sandhurst," the Aindow family home in Formby in Lancashire, England. She was the daughter of Ann Dorothy nee Tickle and John Cuthbert Aindow, and the sixth of their nine children. Ellen, known to her family and friends as "Nell," trained at Barnet General Hospital in Hertfordshire and became a registered nurse in England and Wales in 1955. During her nursing training she met and married her husband of 61 years, David "Alan" Coffin.

Ellen managed her new and growing family, as well as each new home as her husband's career took them to Los Angeles; Cheam in Surrey, England; Algiers; Mallorca, Spain; and to the community of Cape Arthur in Severna Park, where they lived for 43 years. When the youngest of their children began attending high school, she returned to work outside of the home, still drawn to the medical profession. Ellen was an office assistant to Hilary T.S. O'Herlihy, M.D., a cardiologist, for many years. In 1997 she joined the practice of Greenfield M.D. and Associates in Annapolis as a medical assistant and worked there until her retirement in 2014.

She moved to the Gingercove retirement community in Annapolis in 2019 and made close friends there. She tended a vegetable garden throughout her life and had a plot at Gingercove, too. Wherever she was, she rarely sat down in the evenings without a knitting project or planning the next steps for a sewing project. She tried her hand at nearly any crafting skill, quilting, pottery, stained glass, furniture refinishing, home decorating. She was quietly adventurous and always ready to join her family on trips to England and Europe, or to simply go for a drive and explore.

For more than 30 years Ellen was a member of the British Belles, an informal social group of women in Anne Arundel County who were all originally from the United Kingdom. The British Belles gathered monthly and with them she found a sense of "home." She was the secretary of the local Robert Burns Society for many years.

Ellen was resilient and determined and kind and optimistic and polite. She loved her family deeply and they loved her. She is survived by her children, Paul Coffin (Stephanie) of Gaithersburg, Christine Coffin of Bend, Ore., Adrian Coffin (Sharon) of Annandale, Va., and Simon Coffin (Andrea Mitchell) of State College, Pa.; and by her grandchildren Kelsey, Brian, Andrew, Stephen, Josephine and Madeline.

A Mass of Christian Burial will be Celebrated at 12:00 p.m. on Wednesday, August 18, 2021 at St. John the Evangelist Roman Catholic Church 689 Ritchie Hwy. Severna Park, MD 21146.

In lieu of flowers, donations may be sent to the American Heart Association or Chesapeake Bay Foundation.