Elsie was born in Pawcatuck Village, Connecticut in the family home on the corner of Garden and Grove Streets. The family moved across the Pawcatuck River to Westerly, Rhode Island where Elsie attended grammar school. After graduation, she found work as a winder in a cotton mill, then as a bookkeeper. In Westerly, she met Merle Doughty, a Providence, Rhode Island ice cream manufacturer scouting for new business. They were married in Lynn, Massachusetts and honeymooned in the Doughty family summer hotel on Martha's Vineyard. Returning to Pawcatuck, they opened the Doughty and Thomas Ice Cream Company which was very successful until the Great Depression. Elsie and Merle converted their ice cream factory into a boarding house where for many years Elsie served as landlady, raising ducks and chickens for eggs to sell, and baking cakes for sale. Merle died in 1947 and Elsie continued to rent rooms in the former ice cream factory. In winter of 1970 a kerosene stove in her living room exploded, gutting the inside of the building. Elsie lived in Mystic, Connecticut with her son Charles for a while until moving to a nursing home in Groton, Connecticut where she passed away.
Elsie was born in Pawcatuck Village, Connecticut in the family home on the corner of Garden and Grove Streets. The family moved across the Pawcatuck River to Westerly, Rhode Island where Elsie attended grammar school. After graduation, she found work as a winder in a cotton mill, then as a bookkeeper. In Westerly, she met Merle Doughty, a Providence, Rhode Island ice cream manufacturer scouting for new business. They were married in Lynn, Massachusetts and honeymooned in the Doughty family summer hotel on Martha's Vineyard. Returning to Pawcatuck, they opened the Doughty and Thomas Ice Cream Company which was very successful until the Great Depression. Elsie and Merle converted their ice cream factory into a boarding house where for many years Elsie served as landlady, raising ducks and chickens for eggs to sell, and baking cakes for sale. Merle died in 1947 and Elsie continued to rent rooms in the former ice cream factory. In winter of 1970 a kerosene stove in her living room exploded, gutting the inside of the building. Elsie lived in Mystic, Connecticut with her son Charles for a while until moving to a nursing home in Groton, Connecticut where she passed away.
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