When he was thirteen years old, he moved with his parents, Richard O. and Mary Short Elting, to western Kansas.
Then he enrolled in the Kansas University School of Law and graduated with an LLB degree in 1896.
[1] In 1899, he moved to what would become the present city of Durant, Oklahoma, and served as a bankruptcy referee for a few years.
[b] In 1920, Elting was nominated to run for a position on the Oklahoma State Supreme Court (representing Judicial District 2), which he won at the November 1920 general election.
[1] In March, 1922, he became seriously ill, and his health continued to decline until he died at his home in Durant on December 3, 1922.