The seller’s blanket remains to be there – laid out on the sidewalk exterior Lake Merritt’s pergola, identical to it has been for many years. It’s nonetheless lined in numerous wares and trinkets: Crops, collectible figurines, a e-book on self-realization and a VHS copy of “A Lovely Thoughts.”
However this time, nothing is on the market. And lacking from this show is the person who so usually sat beside it — Willie, the casual Mayor of Lake Merritt and a vanguard of the lake’s many distributors.
A memorial to the person generally known as Willie Ellis, 69, now stands on the web site the place he spent many years affectionately greeting passersby and hawking an eclectic mixture of well-priced odds-and-ends alongside the lake’s japanese shore. He died July 22 after having been hospitalized for about three weeks — the newest in a future of well being illnesses that troubled him in recent times.
On Sunday, almost 100 individuals gathered at that very same pergola to burn incense and air recollections of a person who turned one of many metropolis’s craftiest businessmen and an establishment at Oakland’s famed lake.
“If he didn’t greet you together with his voice, he greeted you together with his eyes,” mentioned Joey Ojeda, 67, a longtime good friend. “You possibly can’t be something higher than good, and that’s what Willie was.”
To most, Ellis was considerably of an enigma — identified solely because the light “Greeter of Lake Merritt” who spent almost day-after-day on the similar park bench throughout from Our Woman of Lourdes Church.
Born Robert Bailey, he informally modified his title after he left his childhood dwelling in Alabama for the West Coast. He arrived in Oakland about 20 or 25 years in the past, however he hardly ever spoke about his private upbringing — preferring to supply a sunny greeting or a screaming deal on no matter knickknacks he had out there that individual day.
Ellis may pull in a pair hundred dollars a day promoting this-and-that for $5 right here, $4 there. But he didn’t seem to make use of that cash for a motel, buddies and acquaintances mentioned. Reasonably, on the finish of day-after-day, whereas the solar set low over the water to the west, he’d fastidiously pack up his store and place the whole lot in a suitcase. Then he’d stroll away to sleep someplace exterior, most not too long ago below Interstate 580 close to Lakeshore Avenue.
By 6:30 a.m. the subsequent morning, he’d be again in that very same spot. And inside minutes, he’d lay out that day’s stock.
He credited his grandmother for a enterprise philosophy that stored him going for many years – one revolving across the notion that if he needed something in life, he wanted to earn it.
“It wasn’t going to return to him if he didn’t exit and get it,” mentioned Leo Hawkins, a frequent customer to the lake who knew Willie for years. “Rain or shine, chilly or sizzling, it didn’t trouble him. That carried ’til the day he died.”
“His work ethic, out right here, would make any businessman need to rent him,” Hawkins added.
Nobody ever knew precisely the place he managed to seek out his huge collection of wares. Many individuals merely donated gadgets to him – often turning his humble merchandising operation into an open-air consignment store. He at all times appeared to have at the very least considered one of the whole lot: sun shades, garments, sneakers, headphones, you title it.
Different distributors would look to him like a climate gauge for a way the winds of alternative would blow that day.
“We all know it’s a sluggish day when he leaves early – as a result of he stays to the bitter finish of the day,” mentioned Drea “Lashes” Si, 31, who may usually be discovered a quarter-mile to the west promoting magnificence merchandise. She personally purchased earrings from Ellis that she used to embellish do-it-yourself mirrors, which later offered to her clients. “Now I remorse and need I purchased extra issues from him.”
Six years in the past, one other memorial to him sprouted on the lake.
In July 2016, rumors of his demise swirled all through the close by neighborhood — prompting guests to the lake to erect a kaleidoscopic memorial of stuffed animals, candles, shiny crimson and purple feathered boas, and a Hennessy cognac bottle. Handwritten messages of “RIP WIllie” and “Go With the Ancestors” dotted the makeshift vigil.
But that 12 months, stories of his demise proved vastly exaggerated.
A reporter with this information group tracked him down at a San Leandro hospital, the place he had been recovering from a brutal theft that just about killed him. Two males jumped Willie as he rode his bicycle on Fifth Avenue close to the lake — beating and choking him whereas stealing his bike, laptop computer, cellphone and Golden State Warriors jacket.
Passersby discovered him and referred to as 911, prompting a mad sprint to avoid wasting his life. Regardless of flatlining through the ambulance trip to the hospital, he in some way survived. Within the weeks and months that adopted, many within the Lake Merritt neighborhood rallied round their casual “mayor” — donating cash and changing the stolen Warriors jacket. And in time, he returned to that very same spot close to the pergola to hawk extra items.
That brush with demise took a heavy toll on his well being. He struggled with a traumatic mind damage within the years that adopted. And over the past 12 months, he struggled with speaking.
Ellis nonetheless tried to greet anybody who walked by – often in that very same, considerably high-pitched voice calling out “Hey Mama” or “Have a very good morning.” Typically, on these tougher days, he’d solely supply a smile.
Most mornings, he’d begin the day greeting Anna Gunn. She’d hand him two thermoses stuffed with Ellis’ favorites – oatmeal and rooster noodle soup. Then she’d go educate a health class close by and Ellis would promote his items.
On Might 31, he fell unconscious on the sidewalk and was hospitalized. A number of weeks later, nurses took him off life assist whereas Gunn and some different buddies sat by his aspect.
Lake Merritt appears totally different now, extra quiet and rather less inviting, his buddies say.
“There's a void,” Gunn mentioned. “He was such a welcoming particular person. You anticipated to see him. And in case you didn’t, there was concern. He was simply ever-present.”
On Sunday, his ashes sat in a white urn beside photos of him having fun with the daylight close to the pergola.
Scores of individuals huddled round it. And collectively, they supplied one last greeting again to him – chanting “Willie, Willie, Willie.”
