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Obituaries

Andrew Jackson “Jack” Ellis Jr.

Andrew Jackson “Jack” Ellis Jr., a retired partner of the Richmond firm of Mays & Valentine who held several positions in Hanover County, died Oct. 11 at Broomfield, his farm in Beaverdam. He was 78.

Mr. Ellis had served as a substitute general district and juvenile and domestic relations district judge in the 15th Judicial District from 1998 until he recently became ill with lung cancer.

He practiced with Mays & Valentine, now Troutman Sanders, from 1970 to 1996. Before joining the firm, he served on Ashland Town Council, including five years as mayor from 1958 to 1963, and as Hanover County commonwealth’s attorney from 1963 to 1970, when he began an eight-year stint as Hanover County attorney.

A native of Ashland, Mr. Ellis earned his undergraduate and law degrees from Washington and Lee University and served in the Army’s Judge Advocate General Corps in France before returning to Ashland to practice law, briefly as a sole practitioner and then as partner in the firm of Campbell, Ellis and Campbell.

He was a life member of the Virginia Bar Association and a fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers.

Survivors include his wife of 54 years, Dorothy Lichliter Ellis, two sons, a daughter, six grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.

John William “Jack” Keith Jr.

John William “Jack” Keith Jr., a Richmond lawyer and real estate developer who helped establish the James River Park System, died Oct. 10. He was 81.

Mr. Keith attended Virginia Military Institute before being drafted into the U.S. Army. After active duty, he graduated from the University of Virginia law school in 1951 and represented various European investors in real estate projects in the Richmond area.

Those developments included Hathaway Tower, Richmond’s first high-rise condominium, the Riverside/Briarwood Health and Fitness Center and a related subdivision with a street named for him, the Mount Vernon Apartments and Bon Air Station subdivision.

Mr. Keith and a VMI classmate, Charles Joseph Schrader, traced ownership of the south bank of the James River from Forest Hill Park to the Willow Oaks Country Club to a 1789 land grant. They located an heir to that grant and she agreed to relinquish her rights to them so that the riverlands could be preserved.

They subsequently deeded the property to the city, and it became the first segment of the James River Park System in 1992.

Survivors of Mr. Keith include his wife of 56 years, Gloria Conte Keith, two daughters, seven grandchildren and six great-grandchildren.

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