Eleanor Marie Harirota Ellison was born on 23 July 1929 at their home in Rongotai Terrace, Kilburny, Wellington, where the Wellington Airport now stands. She was the eldest of 6 children born to Dr.Edward Pohau Ellison and his second wife, Mary Karaka Materoa Boyd. Her mother slipped under the clothesline and went into premature labour. Her father , who was the director of Maori Hygiene, had to deliver the baby at home. Eleanor was born 2 months premature and weighed only 3.5 pounds.Her name was registered as Marie Maiti Harirota Ellison but her grandfather called her Eleanor after his favorite aunty and the name stuck. For the first 4 years of her life, she lived with her grandparents, George and Pare Boyd, as she was sickly and they had nursemaids and could better look after her. She was staying at Silverford in Puketapu, Hawkes Bay on 7 February 1931 when the earthquake struck. Everybody ran out of the mansion as the the chimneys fell, leaving little Ella alone in the house. Grandfather Boyd went back and rescued his "Bootalls"as he affectionately called her.
Shortly afterwards, Ned and Mary headed off to Rarotonga where he had been appointed as Chief Medical Officer. Every year, her grandparents would send her to Rarotonga to see her parents and siblings. Ella started school in Rarotonga and stayed there (with the exception of one year in 1938, when she stayed with Granny), until Pearl Harbour was bombed in December 1941,when Mary and all the children were sent back to New Zealand for safety. Ella always had a love for Rarotonga, and often talked of her desire to go back some day, something she finally realised a few years before she died.
Over the next 4 years, she attended Napier Girls High School as a boarding student , and in the holidays she would stay with Granny or Aunt Myrtle. At the end of her 5th form year, in 1945, Ella contracted measles with complications so she didn't go back to school the next year. Her father bought a medical practice in Manaia, Taranaki , so Ella worked in his surgery for a year.
At age 17, Ella developed pneumonia for the second time and seemed to be coming right when an X-ray caravan came to Manaia. Poua encouraged Ella to set a good example by having a chest X-ray, little knowing that it would show tuberculosis. She was sent to Otaki Sanitorium where she remained for over 2 years, spending 18 months on her back. At that time, there were no antibiotics effective against tuberculosis and the condition was often fatal. She was given an experimental treatment which involved pumping air into the top of both of her lungs, to collapse them . This was called a bilateral pneumothorax and it probably saved her life. Unfortunately, one lung remained partially collapsed permanently. Streptomycin became available a year later, and Mum remembers the painful injections that she would have to have for month after month. Eventually she recovered and began to make plans to return home to Manaia.
While in the sands, Ella met five Mormon girls who introduced her to the missionaries and she was taught the gospel. She had been raised as an Anglican,as her father had been training to be a Anglican minister before he decided to become a doctor . When Ella finally was discharged from the sands, just prior to her 20th birthday,she asked her parents if she could join the Mormon church.