This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2006, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
Perpetua and Felicity were undoubtedly on hand March 7 - the day set aside to honor those two saints - to welcome Robert Ellefsen, alias "Ellie," alias "Dr. Edo Lubich," who was one of the most colorful and enigmatic characters in the The Salt Lake Tribune's glorious history.
Ellie died of pneumonia Tuesday evening. He was 86 and, until just a few weeks before his death, could be seen jogging around the streets of Salt Lake City in T-shirt and running shorts, even in the wintry January and February weather.
He was not generally known to Tribune readers, since he spent most of his more-than-30-year career at the paper as a copy editor and headline writer. He was dubbed by many of his colleagues as simply the best at his craft.
Ellie personified a newspaper era that is all but lost, but still lingers in the thoughts of those who lived it.
He was part of an eccentric but gifted crew of editors who worked around the old horseshoe-shaped copy desk in a smoke-filled newsroom where staffers frequently imbibed from the mini bottles stuffed in their baggy pants pockets. But they rarely missed a typo, misspelling or factual error, and they knew the most niggling details of Utah history and culture.
Ellie was a masterful headline writer and raised chuckles around the newsroom with his headlines on weather stories - almost always referring to the saint honored on that particular day.
"Utah's skies unleash the wrath of St. Lucy," an Ellefsen headline might say on a stormy Dec. 13. "St. Januarius Smiles on the Salt Lake Temple," another headline might bellow on a sunny Sept. 19.
His alter ego was "Dr. Edo Lubich," and he would often get in character to the amusement of the staff. The best way to describe "Dr. Lubich" is a cross between Boris Karloff and Robert Frost.
But his demeanor, while working, was stoic.
Ellie never flinched, or even lifted his head, when the liberal Tribune wire editor and the conservative chief copy editor squared off for a fistfight during the resignation speech of President Nixon.
He was too busy editing a story.
He paid no attention when another copy chief screamed at a newsroom assistant for talking too loud, causing her to stomp into the teletype room and slam the door, causing a glass light cover directly over the copy desk chief's head to crash down and knock him out.
He was perfecting a headline.
Robert Ellefsen was born July 18, 1919, to Norwegian immigrants Johannes and Lina Konstansa Ellefsen. He was married to, and divorced from, JoAnn Critchlow, Alicia Pietrella and Barbie Robison.
He worked counterintelligence for the U.S. Navy during World War II, decoding enemy submarine messages. He began his journalism career as a sports writer for the Chicago Sun- Times, where he forged a friendship with jazz musicians Oscar Peterson and Lester Young.
He moved to Utah and worked at the Ogden Standard Examiner before coming to The Tribune in the early 1950s.
He is survived by two sons, Gianni Ellefsen and Tiger Ellefsen, and grandchildren Isabella and Tiger Lorenzo, as well as nephews and nieces, great-nephews and nieces and plenty of old friends from The Tribune.
A private family service will be held at Lamb's Cafe, a favorite haunt of Dr. Lubich.