Already as a child she evinced interest in politics, hanging around the steps of the county courthouse while listening to legal discussions, and sometimes sneaking inside to watch the court proceedings.
[1] Upon graduating from high school Ellis taught locally for one year before heading to Winthrop College in Rock Hill for further study.
There she graduated in 1913 after working part-time to pay for her education,[2] which was also funded with scholarship money;[3] she had taken a sabbatical due to poor health in 1912, during which she had continued to teach.
[1] She continued to teach, unusual for a married woman at the time; she and her husband hired a tutor to help educate their children so that she could work.
[1] When in 1928 Purdy filed to run for the South Carolina Senate Ellis followed suit, winning in a runoff later that year.
[3] As a legislator, her economic record was somewhat liberal for the time, but she was quite socially conservative; she opposed divorce and favored "stricter marriage laws".
[1] Ellis was defeated for reelection in 1932; uterine cancer, from which she had suffered since her time as school superintendent, made campaigning for her second term extremely difficult.
She kept her interest in state and local politics until the end of her life; one of her last acts was to vote, which she did by absentee ballot the day before her death.
Both of her daughters would visit her on weekends and discuss schoolwork with her, and the elder of the two began college at Winthrop not long before her mother's death.
[1] A portrait of Ellis by Janet Fleming Smith hangs in the South Carolina State House to recognize her contributions to civic life;[5] commissioned by her family, it was accepted by legislators for display after extensive lobbying,[1] and was unveiled on March 29, 1995,[6] the hundredth anniversary of the election of Martha Hughes Cannon as a Utah state senator.
[1] An archival collection of material related to Ellis and her career can be found in the library of the University of South Carolina.