FOUR generations of the Ellis family are residents in Mount Isa thanks to Lou Ellis who moved to the city in 1962 from Innisfail.
He came by train with four other business people including a car dealer and chemist to open Mount Isa’s first Singer sewing machine shop on West Street.
Mr Ellis was followed by his wife Helen and their three children Cyril, Evelyn and John.
The shop, opposite the civic centre, used to be owned by Norm Smith, one of the founding fathers of the city. The bitumen in front of his shop only went as far as the corner of West and Isa streets.
Initially Mr Ellis stayed at the Leichhardt Motel, which used to be owned by Joe Vaiente who built the Verona, before moving to a cottage in Joan Street which still exists today.
Mr Ellis could remember the old bullring at the Isa Hotel. A bullring was literally marked out on the floor and under the eye of Bull Ryan, men would fight one-on-one.
He also recalled the Finnish and German men, who he described as the world’s best miners, growing a three-side grape vine trellis which water would be dripped through as a form of “air-conditioning’.
Mr Ellis, 82, stayed in the same shop until a couple of years ago when he moved to Little West Street Lane where he is regularly visited by friends spanning several generations.
He is the last businessman who started in West Street still operating today.
His health means Mr Ellis only works a few hours a day but this does not stop him from continuing his craft.
He recently restored a 100-year-old sewing machine to its original glory for a local woman using parts he still had in his shop.
Not long after he arrived in the city, the big miners’ strike started which could have put the businessman and his family on the back foot.
However, the Singer Sewing Machine company wanted to keep Mr Ellis so badly they let him trade across the region. He’d drive his Volkswagen car, with the passenger seat taken out so he could get more machines in, across what were little more than rugged tracks.
“It was tough at first but because they wanted to keep me the company gave me the whole western area to sell and service machines to hold on to me,” Mr Ellis said.
It would take all day just to drive to Cloncurry. Initially he sold treadle sewing machines and then electric, converting many of the treadles to electric which was ideal for women on stations with limited access to power.
All the schools and hospitals in the area had sewing machines from Mr Ellis.
It was a time when three quarters of the female population sewed where as now maybe one third of women could sew.
Mr Ellis started selling Husqvarna machines as well as fans, typewriters, and lawn mowers
His son Cyril, who used to deliver telegrams on a pushbike, met and married his childhood sweetheart Yvonne Byrnes in Mount Isa. Yvonne’s parents John and Jean were also business owners and had a dress shop in Kmart Plaza when it first opened.
Mr Ellis wanted to expand his business interests and opened Mount Isa’s first pawn shop which was still operated by the family today.
It is the oldest pawn shop still operating in Queensland.
The family also owns Brogden’s Furniture and Bedding which is operated by their daughter Louise and her husband Nathan. They have three children.
“Mount Isa’s been good to both families. It’s a fantastic place to be,” Mr Ellis said.
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