Ellen Browning Scripps - Early Life

Early Life

Ellen Browning Scripps was an imaginative, independent thinking child. As an older woman she recalls when she told her mother that she saw a lion on the front grass. Even though there was an iron cast lion statue, Ellen was sent to her room and told to ask for God's forgiveness for lying. Soon after, Ellen left her room and told her mother that "God had assured her that everything was alright and He often made the same mistake Himself." At about age 5, Ellen hid her older brother James' key to his toy box. Her aunt caught her and told her it was a grievous sin to have committed. To which, Ellen retorted that she didn’t care if she went to hell or not. James Mogg stated in letters sent to his father that James and Ellen teased and harassed their older half sister Elizabeth who had poor hearing. However James Mogg also realized that unlike Elizabeth at 13 years old, 7 year old Ellen was already characterizing the competence and resourcefulness that she would be known for later in life.

Afterward Ellen would say that she had two governing motives as a little girl. One was that she was always scared that she would make a fool of herself and the other was that she could never hurt someone else’s feelings.

It is clear that Ellen was a vivacious young girl who had a strong independent will. However she was also an avid reader. After her mother's death, Ellen was sent to a boarding school. When she was there, Ellen's Bible and Anglican Book of Prayer, given by her aunt and grandmother respectively, were confiscated because "so young a child should not pretend to read or even understand the Bible" and as Albert Britt states in his autobiography of Ellen she probably did understand the passages she was reading in the Bible. At any rate, Ellen was an enthusiastic reader. Luckily her father brought his collection of books with them from England. Although the children were not forced to read nor did they have much schooling, Ellen loved to read and excelled in her education. She studied Latin in elementary school and given good grades by her teachers. Ellen’s love of reading was passed on to her brother Edward Willis through recitations of Shakespeare, Tennyson, and Scott.

Ellen also played a large part in family life on the new farm in Rushville. She was expected to carry the milk from the milking barn to the cellar as well as follow the goslings to make sure none drowned in the pond. The Scripps children had a very strict upbringing. They were the last to eat if company was over and Julia, Ellen’s step-mother, would whip all of the children when one was into trouble to make sure that they did not get away with the crime. Ellen helped run the household, doing cooking, cleaning, sewing, and washing from age 10 until the day she left for good in 1873. In her later years she said she recalled only unhappy childhood memories.

Ellen had one noted romance. A young boy at a picnic asked if he could walk her home. She agreed but said nothing to him during the entire walk. When her elder sister Elizabeth approached them, the boy asked if she lived here. Ellen finally spoke one word: yes. And thus ended the fling.