One Lodge, Six Charters / Service Lodge No. 1009 / Raymond C. Ellis
A Brooklyn lawyer whose Masonic home was Aurora Grata Lodge No. 756 accepted honorary membership in Flushing’s Service Lodge in 1952. He went on to the Grand East and helped bring a medical research laboratory into being in Utica, where his name remains part of its philanthropic legacy.
An Honor Entered on the Flushing Roll
On October 28, 1952, the brethren of Service Lodge No. 1009 in Flushing welcomed a distinguished honorary member. Raymond C. Ellis, Right Worshipful Deputy Grand Master of Masons in the State of New York, accepted the honor, and Service recorded the moment as an honor done to itself.
He was not one of its own by origin: his Masonic home was Aurora Grata Lodge No. 756 in Brooklyn. Yet the bond the lodge offered that autumn proved to be more than a courtesy.
Over the next four years, as Ellis rose to the Grand East and pushed a medical laboratory from idea to cornerstone, Service Lodge kept turning up at the edges of his story, and he at the edges of theirs.
A Gracious Dawn in Brooklyn
Ellis was born in Brooklyn on February 9, 1897, went through the borough’s public schools, and earned his law degree at Brooklyn Law School. By mid-century, The New York Times could introduce him simply as a lawyer of the city.
That was accurate, and also modest. The work that made his name was done less in courtrooms than in committee rooms, where a trained advocate’s habits of drafting, persuading and organizing count for a great deal.
His Masonic life began in Aurora Grata Lodge No. 756, organized in the rooms of the Aurora Grata Lodge of Perfection on Court Street and chartered in June 1875. For decades it met in the Aurora Grata Cathedral, and its 1949 roster glossed the name as “gracious dawn.”
The lodge’s [published history](Groupable
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counts him among its notable members, the brother who “ascended to become Grand Master.”
From that Brooklyn base he built outward. He joined the American Lodge of Research, took the Scottish Rite degrees in the Brooklyn bodies that shared the Aurora Grata name, and belonged to Kismet Temple of the Shrine. Honorary memberships would come later, from Service Lodge in Flushing and from Mount Neboh Lodge No. 257 in Manhattan.
The Committee That Became a Foundation
After the Second World War, Grand Master Gay H. Brown set New York’s Masons to establishing a foundation that would serve humankind as a whole, without regard to Masonic affiliation.
Ellis chaired the committee charged with giving it a purpose. Working with Dr. Currier McEwen, dean of the New York University College of Medicine, and Dr. George W. Woodford, medical director of the Home Life Insurance Company of New York, the committee settled on rheumatic disease, including the rheumatic fever that struck children and could leave lasting damage to the heart.
The Masonic Foundation for Medical Research and Human Welfare was incorporated on October 23, 1947, with Ellis as its first president. H. Douglas Van Duser served as vice president, Samuel Kaltman as secretary and Malcolm D. Simpson as treasurer.
He led it for five years, stepping down in 1952 when the Grand Lodge elected him Deputy Grand Master.
Leaving the presidency did not mean leaving the work. The foundation’s institutional history credits Ellis with conceiving and championing the idea that it should build a medical research laboratory of its own.
The New York State Senate’s account of the institute’s origins likewise recognizes Brown and Ellis as leaders of the effort that established the foundation.
An Honor on Northern Boulevard
That same year brought Ellis to Service Lodge.
Chartered in Flushing on May 3, 1923, Service met in the Flushing Masonic Temple at 137-70 Northern Boulevard and had a habit of raising special funds for causes beyond its own walls.
Its thirtieth-anniversary history, signed by Master Harry H. Goebel, set the Ellis honor alongside a list of those gifts: to the Jewish Settlement House, to Camp Louemma, and to the Masonic Foundation for Medical Research and Human Welfare, the body Ellis had led since its founding.
The lodge history does not connect the two entries, and nothing in it shows that he asked for the money. The pattern is plain all the same. A Queens lodge gave its honorary membership to the man behind the foundation and gave its dollars to the foundation itself.
In both gestures, Service chose to stand with the same cause.
The Gavel Comes to Brooklyn
In May 1954, at the close of the Grand Lodge’s 173rd Annual Communication, Ellis was elected Grand Master unanimously and installed. The New York Times announced it on May 7 under the headline “Lawyer Here Is Elected Masonic Grand Master.”
Within weeks he set the tone for his term. Addressing his District Deputies and staff officers at the Masonic Home in Utica on June 19, 1954, he urged them “never to forget the dignity of your office,” inside the lodge and especially outside it, wherever they appeared as Masons.
The advice suited a man who spent his life building institutions whose standing rested on the people who spoke for them.
Queens felt the administration directly. The Daily News announced that on June 21, 1955, Ellis would speak at the Bayside Masonic Temple and constitute Cardoza Lodge No. 1150, the sixteenth lodge of the First Queens District.
Presiding as the new lodge’s Master was William K. Borow, a past Master of Service Lodge.
A Cornerstone in Utica
The laboratory site was two acres on the grounds of the Masonic Home in Utica, about 500 yards west of the Tompkins Memorial Chapel.
Central New York was a practical choice: thousands of Masons from every part of the state already visited the Home each year, and the Upstate Medical Center in Syracuse lay within reach.
Ground was broken on St. John’s Day, June 18, 1955. On April 7, 1956, Grand Master Ellis laid the cornerstone, and Governor Averell Harriman delivered the principal address.
Back in Flushing, Service Lodge was keeping its own calendar.
Three weeks before the Utica ceremony, on March 13, 1956, the lodge held a homecoming for Right Worshipful George J. Gross, District Deputy Grand Master of the First Queens District. Its printed invitation named him as the representative of “Most Worshipful Raymond C. Ellis.”
The Grand Master’s authority was moving through the district in the hands of a man Service called its own.
Ellis’s administration extended into the spring of 1956. The laboratory was completed two years later and formally turned over to the foundation on June 21, 1958, with Grand Master H. Lloyd Jones and Governor Harriman present.
Its science belonged to its researchers, beginning with Dr. John Murray Steele and, from 1960, Dr. Gordon K. Moe. Its existence owed a great deal to Ellis.
The laboratory later became the Masonic Medical Research Institute. Its 1958 Club commemorates the founding year and explicitly recognizes Ellis’s part in bringing the institution into being.
Forty Years Past the Grand East
His Masonic career did not wind down with his term.
He had received the Scottish Rite’s 33rd degree in 1953, and in 1955 he was elected an Active Member of the Supreme Council for the Northern Masonic Jurisdiction, a seat that kept him in correspondence with successive Sovereign Grand Commanders into the 1990s.
He went on to national leadership as president of the George Washington Masonic National Memorial Association. In 1974 he was urging Masons across the country to become honorary life members of the Memorial at $100 apiece.
On February 17, 1975, he met President Gerald Ford at the Memorial in Alexandria, Virginia, escorted him through the auditorium, presented him to the gathered Masonic leaders, and stood with him at the unveiling of a medallion bearing the President’s likeness.
Seven years later, on Washington’s birthday in 1982, he was listed among the Memorial Association’s executive committee for a courtesy call on President Ronald Reagan in the Oval Office.
Utica kept his name close. In June 1985 the laboratory dedicated the Raymond C. Ellis Tree of Humanity in its lobby, honoring its major supporters and one of its founding fathers. The institute continues to recognize the [Raymond C. Ellis Tree of Humanity](MMRI Recognition Societies - MMRI
MMRI Recognition Societies - MMRI MMRI’s donor recognition societies honor our most generous annual benefactors. We want to recognize our leadership donors generosity.
as part of its philanthropic program.
The Grand Lodge published the address he gave on his ninetieth birthday in 1987, and in 1993 the fraternity gathered for a testimonial dinner in his honor.
Ellis died in 1996, approaching his hundredth birthday. The laboratory’s history gives November 10 as the date and remembers him as its “visionary and lifelong champion.” A Scottish Rite archival authority record gives October 10; the discrepancy remains unresolved.
The Name on the Flushing Roll
Service Lodge can claim only a portion of Raymond C. Ellis.
Aurora Grata raised him, the Grand Lodge elevated him, and Utica built a laboratory around his persistence. Yet Service’s portion is real and well recorded: an honorary membership accepted in 1952, a gift to his foundation entered in the same pages, a Service past Master presiding beside him in Bayside, and a district deputy carrying his name into the lodge room on Northern Boulevard.
Service did not make Ellis. It recognized him before the Grand East and before the cornerstone, and it backed the cause he championed for decades.
On the rolls of a Flushing lodge whose line now runs through Advance Service Mizpah Lodge No. 586, his name marks the moment a neighborhood lodge recognized a Brooklyn lawyer’s work and chose to stand with him.
Endnotes and Sources
Service Lodge Records
Service Lodge No. 1009, F. & A.M., thirtieth-anniversary history, signed by Harry H. Goebel, Master. Undated; transcription in the Service Lodge No. 1009 clippings compilation. Records Ellis’s acceptance of honorary membership on October 28, 1952, and a contribution to the Masonic Foundation for Medical Research and Human Welfare.
Service Lodge No. 1009, invitation to the homecoming of R.W. George J. Gross, District Deputy Grand Master, First Queens District, representing M.W. Raymond C. Ellis, March 13, 1956. Masonic Temple, 137-70 Northern Boulevard, Flushing; Bernard J. Manford, Master.
Lodge Histories and Grand Lodge Records
- R.W. Alfonso Serrano, [“A Brief History of Aurora Grata-Day Star Lodge No. 647”](Groupable
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drawing on the Aurora Grata Lodge No. 756 membership roster of 1949. Gives Aurora Grata’s charter date as June 14, 1875, and identifies Ellis among its notable members.
Aurora Grata Lodge No. 756 merged with Day Star Lodge No. 798 on December 12, 1956, and with Old Glory Lodge No. 647 on December 14, 1988.
Grand Lodge of Free and Accepted Masons of the State of New York, Past Grand Masters roster.
George Washington Masonic National Memorial, Gallery of Grand Masters, New York record for Raymond C. Ellis. Biographical and Masonic affiliations; references to his June 19, 1954 address, his 1987 ninetieth-birthday address, and a 1993 testimonial dinner program.
Newspapers and Periodicals
“Lawyer Here Is Elected Masonic Grand Master,” The New York Times, May 7, 1954.
“New Masonic Lodge,” Daily News (New York), June 12, 1955, p. 188. The spelling “Cardoza” follows the supplied transcription.
“President Ford Declared: ‘Masonic Precepts Can Help America,’” The Pennsylvania Freemason, Vol. XXII, No. 2, May 1975, pp. 1, 3.
Proceedings, Grand Council of Royal and Select Masters of the State of New York, 1974. Banquet address by Raymond C. Ellis as president of the George Washington Masonic National Memorial Association.
The Masonic Messenger, Summer 2022, Grand Lodge of Georgia. Includes a history of the medical research institution, Ellis’s foundation presidency, the 1955 groundbreaking and the 1956 cornerstone ceremony.
Medical Research and Institutional History
Masonic Medical Research Institute, institutional history, “Freemasonry’s longstanding commitment to the health and quality of life for all humanity.”
New York State Senate, Resolution J5781, 2017–2018 session, adopted June 19, 2018. Commemorates the institute’s sixtieth anniversary and recounts the foundation’s incorporation, laboratory site, 1958 completion and early research leadership.
Masonic Medical Research Institute, “1958 Club”. Recognizes Ellis’s role in the institution’s founding.
Masonic Medical Research Institute, [Recognition Societies: Raymond C. Ellis Tree of Humanity](MMRI Recognition Societies - MMRI
MMRI Recognition Societies - MMRI MMRI’s donor recognition societies honor our most generous annual benefactors. We want to recognize our leadership donors generosity.
- Masonic Medical Research Institute, Spring 2021 newsletter. Discusses Ellis as the first president of the predecessor foundation.
Presidential and Archival Records
Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library, President’s schedule and briefing papers for the George Washington Masonic National Memorial visit, February 17, 1975.
Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, presidential briefing papers for the courtesy call by the Executive Committee of the George Washington Masonic Memorial Association, February 22, 1982. Participant list.
Scottish Rite Masonic Museum and Library, Lexington, Massachusetts, authority record “Ellis, Raymond C. (Raymond Clark), 1897–1996,” and associated Supreme Council, Northern Masonic Jurisdiction, correspondence files, 1927–2003.
Bibliographic listing, “Installation of Most Worshipful Raymond C. Ellis as Grand Master,” May 4, 1955, AbeBooks. The listing is supplementary and is not used here to establish the beginning of his administration.
A Note on Dates, Names and Gaps
The Grand Lodge lists Ellis’s administration as 1954–1955 by Masonic year. Service Lodge’s March 1956 invitation and the April 1956 cornerstone ceremony show him still serving into the spring of 1956. Aurora Grata’s history gives the span as 1954–1956.
The Scottish Rite library’s authority record gives his birth as February 9, 1897, and his death as October 10, 1996. The laboratory history gives November 10, 1996, “three months before his 100th birthday.” That phrase is consistent with the February birth date, but it does not independently settle the conflicting death dates. The narrative therefore gives the year and attributes November 10 to the laboratory history.
The Gallery of Grand Masters record identifies Ellis as an honorary member of Mount Neboh Lodge. Its indexed text contains an apparent numbering fragment, “732.” The lodge number used here is 257, consistent with Mount Neboh’s 1865 printed by-laws.
The available Gallery text also appears to identify Ellis as the Scottish Rite’s Deputy for New York, but the text is truncated. That office is omitted pending examination of the full record.
His raising date, any term as Master of Aurora Grata Lodge, details of his legal practice, and his family are not established by the sources assembled here.
Service Lodge’s foundation contribution and Ellis’s honorary membership appear in the same lodge history. Their proximity supports a discussion of shared institutional interests, but it does not establish that the contribution was solicited by Ellis or made as a condition of the honorary membership.
The research institute does not bear Ellis’s name. Its Raymond C. Ellis Tree of Humanity honors his legacy within the institution.
Direct links are included where a specific source has been identified. Unlinked archival and newspaper items retain their bibliographic descriptions rather than links to unverified pages.
Continue the Story
Follow the Six-Charter History
Explore One Lodge, Six Charters
Place Service Lodge’s Flushing history within the lineage that leads to Advance Service Mizpah Lodge No. 586.
Another Queens Lodge and Its Community
Read the history of Mizpah Lodge No. 738
Explore another branch of the shared lodge story, rooted in Newtown and Elmhurst.
Explore the Medical Research Legacy
Read the New York State Senate’s history of the institute
Learn about the institute’s 1958 Club
See the Raymond C. Ellis Tree of Humanity recognition program
