Los
Angeles County
Biographies
MARIE MURPHY
ELLIS
A brilliant scholar, Marie Murphy
Ellis has amply justified the promise of her student days and is numbered among
the women leaders of the Los Angeles bar.
She was born August 29, 1894, in Dover, New Hampshire, and is a daughter
of M. Joseph and Mary F. (Collins) Murphy, natives of that state and of sturdy
New England stock. On retiring from
business her father came to the Pacific coast and now lives in Alhambra, a
beautiful suburb of Los Angeles.
In Boston, Massachusetts, Marie
Murphy made thorough preparation for the vocation of her choice, attending
Emerson College when a child, and the Boston University School of Law, from
which she was graduated in 1916. In the
same year she qualified for practice in Massachusetts and followed her
profession there for nine years. Her
maternal uncle, John Collins, crossed the plains in a covered wagon and his
glowing tales of the west greatly interested his relatives in New England. It was due to him that the Murphy family came
to California on a visit, which was protracted for three years, and in 1925
they decided to locate permanently in the Golden state. Here Miss Murphy met Clyde H. Ellis, a member
of a pioneer family of Orange County, California, and they were married January
21, 1931.
When a young woman of thirty-one
Mrs. Ellis was admitted to the California bar and soon gave proof of her
capacity for legal service. She enjoys a
remunerative civil practice of a general nature and is located on the sixth
floor of the American Bank Building at Second and Spring
streets, Los Angeles. Her powers have
grown through the exercise of effort and she has become recognized as one of
the ablest women lawyers on the Pacific coast.
While living in the Old Bay state Mrs. Ellis joined the League of Women
Voters and was elected to the Democratic state central committee. She was also identified with the Professional
Women’s Club, the Boston University Women Graduates’ Club and the John Boyle
O’Reilly Reading Club and other clubs.
Since taking up her residence in southern California she has become a
member of the Women Lawyers’ Club, the California State Bar Association and the
American Bar Association.
Transcribed
by V. Gerald Iaquinta.
Source: California of the South
Vol. V, by John Steven McGroarty, Pages 337-338,
Clarke Publ., Chicago, Los Angeles, Indianapolis. 1933.
© 2012 V.
Gerald Iaquinta.
GOLDEN NUGGET'S LOS ANGELES
BIOGRAPHIES