Covington - Ella Marie (Dillman) Brier, 91, formerly of Covington and had been residing in Indianapolis, IN, passed away in the Forest Creek Village of Indianapolis, on Thursday, March 26, 2026 at 1:10 a.m.
Ella was born in Paxton, Illinois on February 5, 1935.  She was the daughter of the late Monten and Anna Marie (Swanson) Dillman.  Ella was raised in Attica, graduating from Attica High School in 1953.  She has lived most of her life in Covington, where she worked as a custodian for the Covington Elementary School from 1984 until her retirement in 1995.  She later moved to Indianapolis in 2003 to be near her daughter.
Ella was a member of the St. James United Methodist Church in Danville, IL.
On May 20, 1953, Ella married Fred Eugene Brier in Attica, IN.  Fred preceded her in death on December 22, 1984.  Ella leaves behind three children, Kevin (Susan) Brier, Birdseye, IN; Kelly and Kristy Brier, both of Indianapolis; two brothers, John (Deb) Dillman and  Joe (Charlene) Dillman, both of Rainsville, IN; two sisters, Norma (the late Charlie) Brown, Maryville, TN and Carla (Rick) Peterson, Rainsville, IN; three grandchildren, Anna Brier, Cleveland, OH; Jeffrey (Rachel) Brier, Jasper, IN and Jason Brier, Chicago, IL; a sister-in-law, Connie Dillman, Rainsville, IN.  She was preceded in death by four brothers, Ralph, Robert, Donnie and Jimmy Dillman along with three sisters, Rose Hewitt, Shirley Waxer and Marilyn Wellmaker.
Ella Marie Brier marched to the beat of her own drum.
I am her first daughter, Kelly Brier. This part of her obituary is my tribute to her person.  Yes, it is glowing and full of admiration.  This does not mean that her role as my Mom was easy.  She was a great Mom in so many, many ways, and I choose to honor her in this way.
Being a Grandma made her extremely happy. She was "all in" spending days or up to a week visiting Kevin and Sue's home in Birdseye, IN, with grandchildren, Anna, Jeffrey and Jason. She attended many games, musicals, and band performances to her great delight.  She was so proud of them as they were talented singers too.  She was never a "board gamer" but she loved playing simple card games with Jeffrey and Jason and would tell stories about how they would beat her at the game!!  Cooking for them was always important to her plus; she could give Sue (a really good cook with a great singing voice too) a much-needed break. Later as the grandchildren grew up, it is easy to enjoy them as fine adults.
She loved my Dad deeply and after he passed on December 22, 1984, her passion for Holiday dinners waned a bit and fortunately for us my Dad's sister Aunt Connie Helgers is also an extraordinary cook too!! For many years she was a House mother at Purdue for a fraternity. Those guys were lucky!!!  Connie had always hosted Holidays but for these later decades we would attend Connie & Jim Helger's Holiday dinners, and their children, Belinda, Kim, Steve, and Candy.  Our very fun and fabulous cousins and Mom would bring her pies and cranberry salad.
Most folks found her unique, and she could be very charming. Her passions were many. Though she was not an historian or a sophisticate of the arts, she was talented in many of them and an enthusiast of all the rest.  She saw beauty in the majestic and the mundane.  From a gilded vase to a tiny glass trinket on a windowsill that may be in need of a dusting.
All of my life I have been aided by her influence, especially concerning the arts and culture. She influenced so many of our friends and cousins, and we have heard from them and their memories of her and her particular passions and interests. Whether it was refinishing a lovely antique piece of furniture or tuning our piano. She could do so many things.
Music was perhaps her favorite of all the arts. In particular, great voices. Her favorites being Tony Bennett, who she saw perform live 5 times and met him twice and Barbra Streisand who she saw perform live once in Chicago, IL. She was a singer herself with a great voice which seems to run in the Dillman family. Like her Mom Anna Marie Dillman she could play the piano wonderfully "by ear". She could also play the guitar and accordion as well. Her favorite songs were "classic standards" and Broadway musicals.  When she had trouble waking us kids for school, we would soon hear Ethel Merman belting out a Broadway tune from the big console stereo!! That got us out of bed fast!
Paintings of the old masters by Thomas Gainsboro and Rembrandt and impressionists Pierre-August Renoir and Claude Monet were her favorites. She had prints of them hanging in our home and like the music they made an impression on many of us. Those artists were popular during her lifetime, but she also enjoyed collecting art books and reading about them as well as collecting sets of encyclopedias to read up on anything. When we asked questions, she would refer us to the books. She was also gifted in drawing and painting, although she did not do so much of those skills she could when she wanted or needed to do so. Kevin was an artist in high school and at ISU.  One day she declared to my Dad, Fred Brier sometime in the mid 1970's that we as a family were going to draw, paint, and cut out with an electric saw from plywood a life-sized nativity scene, with all the players and the animals!! Plus, a three-sided full roof nativity structure!!! It was a feat and a treasured Christmas scene in our front yard for decades.
Years later she decided to roof our home. It was a tri-level and she did it!! She was a super strong woman.  Then she decided she wanted to build a "shed". She chose the same bricks used for our home. I know she got a lot of advice from her brothers, Ralph, Jimmy, John, Joe, and Donnie for these projects.  As well as cutting her wood for her wood burning stove. She knew how to split wood, too.  Her love of trees and the grain of her favorite woods of antiques brought her a lot of joy, like her brothers love of wood.
She could have easily been an interior designer, but she was only interested in decorating her own home and our homes as young adults and for decades afterwards. She loved all things of classical architecture from the Roman columns to magazines of Architectural Digest next to Readers Digest.  Magazines had a big presence in our home.      There was a time when one could find amazing deals on antiques and she could find the best deals!!  She knew how to use color for rooms. Each room had its own look or theme. Traditional, French Kitchen, Classical, or Early American. We had all of them in our home. My room was completely purple of course.
She was a natural landscaper. She created oasis of trees and flowers buying and transplanting so many trees, flora and fauna each year. She loved just sitting outdoors and watching wild animals. We used to name our squirrels and chipmunks that we were constantly trying to keep out of the bird food, especially one named "hog"!!! She loved birds big time and she had a lot of books on them for reference.  We would be outside and hear or listen to the woodpeckers' peck and look to see if it was an Ivory billed woodpecker!!  Of course, it never was. It would sometimes be a Pileated woodpecker but mostly be a red-headed or yellow headed . Still, it was exciting. As children, we each had a tree planted in our name. Mine was our state tree the Popular.  We watched our trees grow tall and strong. It was also important to her to have a full-size cement grounded flagpole to fly our beautiful American flag.  It was our job as kids to take the flag down each night which fell to Kevin most times. We learned how to handle it with care and respect.
She was also a stylish and rather classic dresser. Loving color, and many times adding matching, hat, gloves and shoes. Hair and makeup were important, too. She cut her own hair all her life until she was in her 80's when she could no longer reach the back of her head.  Perhaps, oddly, she did not have big desires for gems; she really enjoyed her "costume" jewelry with all of her outfits.
Christmas was always a magical time in our heavily decorated home.  She  put up two full trees, one real that we would cut as a family outing each year and an amazing silver foil 60's tree (like Charlie Brown & the Peanuts) with a blue & green theme for the living room. This was way before it was common to have multiple trees and "themed" colors. She decorated the mantels with real greenery and changed out all the vases from flowers to Christmas flora and all things shiny!! Outside we not only had the Nativity; we had a family of Snow people, and a set of 8 reindeer and Santa Claus in his sleigh riding into the sky that she had built the same way as the Nativity before we kids were born. I decorated at least 8 fir trees in all the individual colors of lights. Like I said, it was magical.
Her relationship with food was so important to her one would think she was an "Italian" Mom!! She just loved feeding people and especially loved ones who really appreciated home cooking like her fried chicken and mashed potatoes. Frist, she came from a family of extraordinarily talented women. Cooking is one of their standouts.  My Grandma Dillman's pies, and Swedish Rye bread are legendary.  As I understand it all of her sisters learned their mom's special talent of making delicious food for an enthusiastic family and friends who were lucky enough to attend family dinners and Holidays. Not to slight anyone, but I have such fond memories of Aunt Shirley's pies, and Aunt Carla's Noodles, and especially her Pumpkin cake with cream cheese icing (which I understand was her Mom's recipe) and there is none better!!! As for my Mom, her pie crust was literally just the best. Her lemon, and English walnut pies being favorites by so many family and friends.  Mom would make one friend of mine a walnut pie to fly home with him back to California after a visit home to Covington, and he would not even wait to get home. He would get a knife from a stewardess and eat a piece and share one with her too!!  Many of Kristy's college friends have fond memories of her food either at our home or when we would visit her in Terre Haute at ISU feeding hungry college students. There was nothing more scrumptious than eating her banana bread at night around the campfire at Kickapoo Park with family and friends, The Bruns' and the Scott's.
We grew up with dogs (aways one at a time) but Mom was much more of a cat person.  We learned this in the late 70's when 4 kittens showed up on our property. We had never had any cats or kittens.  This soon changed and for the rest of her life cats became her focus. In Indianapolis, she became a Community Cat feeder via Indy Ferel and trapped, spayed and neutered too many cats to count.  We also had too many of them in our homes, but we loved them all, saving so many. We now only have my beloved dog BINGO.
Like my Dad, Mom could have a good conversation with anyone, whether they were family, friends or stranger. She visited with all the staff members in the stores and thrift stores she regularly shopped, and she learned to "dumpster dive" before it was a common term. Yes, it did become a problem of how much she shopped, but she just saw the beauty in nearly everything. So, if you did not really know my Mom I hope you feel as if you do now. She was a happy and many times a "happy go lucky" person and I had an exciting and for the most part a happy childhood because of my Mom and a funny and loving Dad.
Friends may call at the Hillsboro Church of the Nazarene, 453 S. State Road 341, Hillsboro, IN, on Saturday, April 11th, from 2:00 p.m. until the service time at 4:00 p.m. with Pastor Adam Vanaman officiating.  Inurnment will be held at a later date in the Rainsville Cemetery, Rainsville, IN.