The sampler depicts an upper and lower case alphabet over a large red house flanked by a ship and flowering plants. Overall it is in excellent condition with a few minuscule spots of red thread loss and a few spots of light ground discoloration. It is framed in a wide walnut frame.

Verse and signature:
I am the Lily of the Valley
Mary Ellen Ellis Age 11
1865. Charity.

Mary Ellen Ellis was was born on July 19, 1854 in Hadley, Warren County, Kentucky. She was the daughter of William Lewis Ellis (1826-1859), who was twenty-eight years old and Nancy W. Stratton (1820-1910) who was thirty-four. Mary Ellen married James Warren Stratton (1848-1935) in Robertson County, Tennessee on December 21, 1869, at the age of fifteen (four years after completing this sampler) and they were married for sixty-five years. The couple moved to Adairville, Logan County, Kentucky and had three children, Arthur Alonzo (1874-1957), Minnie T. (1879-1906) and William Clarence (1882-1952).
Mary Ellen Ellis died on September 27, 1936 in Adairville, Logan County, Kentucky where she is buried in the Greenwood Cemetery.