Before her fourteenth birthday, Ellen arrived in the United States from South Wales, Great Britain. Her Irish born parents left their native County Cork either before or after marriage seeking work in the UK. Ellen and most of her nine siblings were born near the English border in Pontypool, Wales, the last two born in America. She was third born, however her two older brothers died as children in Europe. Years later, according to oral history, when asked how it could be possible she was 100% Irish when she was born in Britain, "...can't a cow be a cow without being born in the barn," Ellen replied.

During early 1873, her dad Tom Hayes left the family and sought new work in America. Later that year, he sent for them. His wife, Ellen's mother Helena (Ellen) Driscoll Hayes, emigrated from Wales to Minnesota with her six surviving children, Ellen the oldest, the youngest was six months old.

The Hayes family lived in Minneapolis' east-side Irish neighborhood on Ramsey St. NE., the first residential street east of the Mississippi River and a few blocks south of busy artery Broadway St. As oldest sibling, Ellen's duties in her clamorous, impoverished household were many. Her dad found work as a laborer working alongside two brothers Dan and James Hayes who lived in the same neighborhood raising families.

While still a teenager, during the spring of 1879, she met newly arrived German immigrant John Adam Dorr at mass at nearby St. Anthony Padua Catholic Church, 813 Main Street. In July 1879, they married in Belmond, Iowa, where they traveled on a short trip speaking their vows in the presence of John's farming relatives, his double first cousins.

Ellen and husband John Adam eventually birthed twelve children, their first three children born in Minneapolis. After relocating away from the city twenty-five miles distance, nine more kids were born on their farm in Oneka Township, Washington County, Minnesota. They had 7 daughters and 5 sons. Two of their grown sons were killed in separate accidents near their farm in 1915 and 1917 respectively; an adult married daughter, Nell Benson, lingered with consumption for several years and died young leaving Ellen to help raise her two young girls, and they lost two infant daughters including their first born child, Mamie Dorr, who died in Minneapolis at age 7 months.

Their farm was near the east shore of Bald Eagle Lake in what is now the Twin Cities northeast metro area. John was in the ice business for years, harvesting winter ice from area lakes, and he also farmed and was a volunteer fireman. Ellen managed their home and was a skilled seamstress and crocheter. In retirement, they moved into White Bear Lake, MN onto a ten acre parcel right in town along Hwy 61. where they continued to grow and sell vegetables and poultry.

Ellen stood 5'2" tall, had blue eyes and brown hair turned early gray. She was a tough, vocal, spirited "in-charge-pants-wearing-wife and mother". She loved children and was midwife at the births of most of her twenty-four grandchildren. Additionally, she was documented as midwife for scores of neighborhood births. She lived in Wales from 1860-1873, in NE Minneapolis from 1873-1884, in rural Hugo, Minnesota from 1884-1920, and in White Bear Lake, MN from 1920-1941. She lived her first twenty-five years as an urban resident and successfully transitioned to rural life.

John Adam died in 1930 at age 76.5 years. Ellen died eleven years later from heart failure in her sleep in an upstairs bedroom while visiting her son John Dorr and family at their home in Minneapolis. She is buried next to her husband in St. Mary of the Lake Catholic Cemetery, White Bear Lake, Minnesota. Also buried in the family plot with her and John are children George A. Dorr 1892-1915, Donald V. Dorr 1897-1917, Nell Dorr Benson 1887-1930, Catherine Dorr 1903-1994 and two infant LaBore grandsons. Two of her other children, Otto Dorr and Marie Dorr LaBore and their spouses, are also buried in St. Mary Cemetery. written by Gregory Dorr