Jelena's mother Persida Skerlić, who died in 1893, was devoted to her children and family and had a great influence on them, encouraging them to learn and study.

[4] The Ćorović family initially changed their place of residence frequently, living in Sarajevo (1910–1914), Jajce and Banjaluka (1914–1917), Zagreb, Dubrovnik, and Mostar (1917–1919).

Jelena remodelled her apartment into a salon, where the elite of the interwar period gathered every Tuesday to discuss literature, history, culture and current events.

From French and Russian she mostly translated novels and short stories, namely the works of Jules Verne, Anatole France, Guy de Maupassant, André Theuriet, Alphonse Daudet, Octave Mirbeau, Claude Farrère, Nicolas Chamfort, Jules Lemaître, Ernest Renan, Henri Lavedan and others.

Towards the end of her life, Jelena predominantly worked on her memoirs – Život među ljudima ("Life Among People") – which included testimonies about her husband Vladimir Ćorović, brother Jovan Skerlić, and her friends Isidora Sekulić, Desanka Maksimović, Branislav Nušić, Nikola Pašić, as well as other contemporaries.