The Congressman was raised in Greensboro, Alabama and attended local public schools, afterwards he graduated from Gulf Coast Military Academy, Gulfport, Mississippi, in 1917.
He was well-connected politically, among other relations being a second cousin of Robert Stephen Ellis, Jr. (born 1899), a Louisiana state circuit court judge who was a son-in-law of U.S. Representative Bolivar E. Kemp and a brother-in-law of Louisiana Attorney General Bolivar Edwards Kemp, Jr. Ellis attended Gulf Coast Military Academy in Gulfport, Mississippi.
Academy Awards | United States Military Academy | Russian Academy of Sciences | Gulf War | Gulf of Mexico | United States Coast Guard | National Academy of Sciences | American Academy of Arts and Sciences | Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film | United States Naval Academy | Gold Coast | United States Air Force Academy | military | Military Cross | Wizards of the Coast | Royal Academy of Music | Persian Gulf | Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences | Gold Coast, Queensland | East Coast of the United States | East Coast Main Line | West Coast | Coast to Coast AM | Brooklyn Academy of Music | Phillips Academy | West Coast Main Line | South Coast Repertory | Royal Military Academy Sandhurst | Phillips Exeter Academy | Ivory Coast |
Over the next few years, he oversaw the chartering of Phi Kappa chapters at the Emory University Academy in Oxford, Georgia (Gamma Beta) and at the Gulf Coast Military Academy in Gulfport, Mississippi (Mu Theta).