Ellis Reynolds was born January 20, 1847 in Davis County, Iowa, the eldest child of William Fletcher and Anna Hawley Reynolds. Shortly thereafter, the family joined the Mormon church and, in 1852, emigrated to Utah where they were among the first settlers of Battle Creek, now Pleasant Grove, in Utah County. Ellis was fourteen when her mother died, leaving her as housekeeper and mother to the younger children. Within a year, her father remarried, a development which was apparently difficult for Ellis who spent much of the next few years with her grandparents, William J. and Ellis E. Hawley who lived in American Fork.

She was guided from early childhood by a strong and continuing desire for education, an urge perhaps felt, but not often acted on, by women of her generation.

Early in my womanhood I marked out for myself a plan for study which served me well as the years passed on. I could not well concentrate on the lessons in books during the very busy daylight hours, so I decided on the early morning hours for my studies. Therefore I began my studies at four o'clock and put in three solid hours before the household began to stir. (The Early Autobiography and Diary of Ellis Reynolds Shipp, M.D., ed. Ellis Shipp Musser, 1962, p. 64.)

In 1865 when she was eighteen, Ellis caught the attention of Brigham Young, then on one of his periodic tours of the territory. He offered her the opportunity to go to Salt Lake City with him; live in his official residence, the Lion House; and "be as one of [his] own children." Ellis accepted the offer and lived and studied in the Lion House for about eight months.

According to her autobiography, Ellis had been interested in Milford Bard Shipp for several years prior to her residence in Salt Lake City. Bard Shipp had already been married and divorced twice, so his attentions to Ellis were met with suspicion by those close to her, including Brigham Young. In spite of these objections, Ellis Reynolds married Milford Bard Shipp in the Endowment House in Salt Lake City on May 5, 1866. From this marriage came ten children, only five of whom grew to be adults: Milford Bard, Jr. who became a doctor; Richard Asbury, a practicing lawyer; Olea S. Hill, born while her mother was attending medical school. Ellis Shipp Musser attended Columbia, became a teacher, and married Joseph W. Musser, an activist in an offshoot of the LDS Church which advocated plural marriage. She also was the instrument in gathering together correspondence, manuscripts, and other materials on her mother for eventual donation to the Historical Society. Nellie Shipp McKinney was the baby of the family, born in 1889.

In 1871 Bard took, in the custom of the day, another wife, his third. Ellis commented on this development in her diary:

On the 23rd of October, Milford married another wife, Elizabeth Hilstead. I do not allow myself to become low spirited. I have trusted in my Heavenly Father and He has blessed me. I know there is but one way to be happy in polygamy and that is to keep burning in our hearts the Spirit of God. (Diary, p. 84.)

Eventually Bard would have a total of four wives simultaneously. "Celestial marriage" may have been difficult for Ellis, judging from the amount of time she spent exhorting herself to be happy and perfect. In 1872, she wrote,

O what an error I have committed! Despite all my resolution to be cheerful and uncomplaining I this night spoke to Milford of the ills and hardships of life. I said I thought there were many of our trials that were unnecessary when by a word or look of encouragement we could be made happy. I even accused him of being partial, of not being general in his conversations, etc., etc.,. . . .(Diary, p. 93)

In the fall of 1875, Margaret Curtis Shipp left Salt Lake for Philadelphia where she planned to study at the Woman's Medical College. She became so homesick that she returned home after four weeks. As a result, Ellis was given permission to go back to Philadelphia in her sister-wife's place. She left Salt Lake City in November, 1875 expecting to be gone from her family and home for two-and-a-half years. On her arrival at the Medical College, she immersed herself in course work and rapidly caught up with her class, "I have spent considerable time dissecting. The horrifying dread that so oppressed me in the beginning is wearing off. All disagreeable sensations are lost in wonder and admiration. . . ." (Diary, p. 192.)

While in school, Ellis supported herself by selling dressmaking patterns ("models") and teaching women to sew. However, her standard of living was at a bare subsistence level most of the time and about halfway through the course, Ellis was forced to return home for a time to regain her health. On her return to Philadelphia, she successfully graduated although she had given birth to her daughter Olea not long before. Just as Ellis was completing her course, Margaret C. Shipp, whose place at the college Ellis had taken three years before, returned to Philadelphia to finish, graduating in 1883. Later, she would divorce Bard Shipp and marry B. H. Roberts, prominent in the LDS church hierarchy. Ellis also instructed Mary, another of Bard's wives, in obstetrics. She became a busy midwife in Salt Lake City for many years.

The for May 15, 1878 contained an advertisement announcing Dr. Ellis Shipp's intention to begin practice with "special attention given to Obstetrics, diseases of women and minor surgery. Free scholarships." The last phrase in the announcement indicates the beginning of a school to train nurses and midwives. This school, which would run continuously until 1938, consisted, in the beginning, of two terms of six months each with five lessons per week. A certificate of graduation was presented to each student who successfully passed examinations supervised by the Salt Lake City Board of Health. Later the school became a traveling affair, with Dr. Shipp staying about three months in one location. Thus her correspondence shows groups of letters from Rigby, Idaho and Roosevelt, Utah as well as settlements in Colorado and other western localities. About 1902 she visited the Mormon colonies in Mexico where she lectured in "every hamlet ward from Ciudad Diaz to the tops of the mountains with all its treacherous roads...." (Memories, Ellis Shipp Musser).

In 1888 Milford Bard Shipp who had, somewhere along the way, also acquired a medical degree, started , a "Monthly Journal of Medicine and Surgery." Drs. Ellis and Maggie Shipp were editors and frequent contributors. Near the beginning of the magazine's run appears the following rationale for its creation.

It is with no little apprehension that we launch the upon an untried sea. The domain of medical journalism with us has not, hitherto, been invaded. To publish a Journal of Health, such as we contemplate, has received our careful deliberation--and we have often asked ourselves the question, can we present anything to the public that will be of interest and profit. ( , April, 1888, p. 14)

Evidently they felt they could. The journal lasted three years. Ellis Shipp was a contributor the first two years, but no articles by her are listed in the third volume--for reasons which remain unclear.

Dr. Ellis Shipp had a healthy respect for herself and her accomplishments. In an undated letter to her daughter Ellis, she says:

I believe if I keep my office here I will never be without some practice--at least sufficient to make our living & it is much easier than housework & work in the garden--& I am fully convinced that I should not do drudgery, & that when we go home we must have good competent help for it doesn't pay us to not be professional.

At the same time she accepted the traditional women's role of her generation, and those following.

Some women want to be men. Some say, "Oh, if I had only been a boy." I never felt that way. I was always glad that I was a girl, a woman, a wife, a mother. This is our mission, the greatest work that we can perform in this life is to be true wives and faithful mothers. Greater Joy could not be had. Nothing could ever compare with the joy we have in our offspring. (Talk given to Daughters of Utah Pioneers, June, 1932)

Her love for children was strong and enduring, but there is a thread of guilt running through her correspondence to them, possibly tied to the fact that she was not more constantly with them--a problem touched on by her son-in-law, Joseph W. Musser, in a poem written as tribute to her in 1932:

So she toiled thru the nights as well as the day, Fixing livers and lungs--driving trouble away; Leaving her own progeny pouting and sore, Yet always supplied with goodies galore.

Dr. Ellis Reynolds Shipp was another of the accomplished women of her generation. Besides those achievements already noted, she was also on the staff of the Deseret Hospital; a member of the general board of the LDS Relief Church Society; a delegate to the National Council of Women; president of the Utah's Women's Press Club; a member of Utah's Hall of Fame; and poet. She practiced medicine for more than sixty years and the Daughters of Utah Pioneers museum in Salt Lake City has a room entirely devoted to her and her accomplishments.