It is with sadness that we learned George "Elfie" Ballis, whose photographic skill and insight chronicled the drama and joy of Cesar Chavez’s farm worker movement over five decades, passed away quietly Thursday morning at his home near Fresno, according to reports from his wife and partner, Maia.
George began covering the farm workers during the mid-1960s as editor in Fresno of the Central Valley’s AFL-CIO publication. He recorded some of the most memorial milestones of the Delano Grape Strike, including Cesar Chavez’s 1968 fast for nonviolence. In recent years, George has been a fixture at United Farm Workers constitutional conventions, mingling with the hundreds of delegates and documenting their proceedings and guest speakers.
One of his most renowned images is Cesar Chavez leading a jubilant march of farm workers on the first day of the UFW’s historic Delano-to-Sacramento pilgrimage in March 1966. It has been featured in books and magazines.
"No one has consistently demonstrated George’s love and commitment to La Causa over so many decades," declares UFW President Arturo Rodriguez and Paul Chavez, president of the Cesar Chavez Foundation.
George Ballis’ memorial service consisted of his “Endgame Party” attended by hundreds of friends and well-wishers in November 2009, at his beloved SunMt. Center where he and his wife, Maia lived east of Fresno. Representing the farm worker movement and the Chavez family at that event were Marc Grossman, Cesar’s longtime spokesman and personal aide, and Anthony Chavez, one of Cesar’s grandsons. They delivered a personal letter to George and Maia from Helen Chavez, Cesar’s widow:
Dear George:
All of us in the farm worker movement have been thinking and praying for you since we learned about your illness.
Cesar believed everyone in the movement had a contribution to make, and he made everyone feel their contribution was important. It didn’t matter whether you were an attorney representing the union in court or a cook preparing food in the strike kitchen or a photographer documenting the courage of the grape strikers in Delano and the injustices they were made to suffer. You helped Cesar and the farm workers bring their struggle to millions of decent people who were inspired by the pictures you took to support the cause.
But we also saw through your work the love and commitment to social justice that brought meaning to your life, and to our lives too. The light that shined through your photos has touched so many hearts over the decades.
As the years pass, we often don’t get to tell people until it is too late how much they have meant to us, and to thank them for everything they have done. Saying thank you doesn’t seem enough, but it is what we can do.
May God bless and keep you and your family.
Con el mejor de mi carino.
Viva la Causa!
Helen F. Chavez