She was born 3 January 1899 at Rosemary Row, East Tadcaster, to Frederick Ellerbeck, a miller waggoner and Annie, formerly Crossley. Frederick registered the birth. Her mother died shortly after the birth.
Elsie May was brought up by her grand-parents, William and Sarah Ann Crossley, and was with them in the 1901 census of 2 Hillside (Bootshop), East Tadcaster, aged 2 and born in Tadcaster. It is thought that the Crossleys removed Elsie May from her father, to bring her up, and father and daughter became estranged, particularly after Frederick had a second family after marrying again.
She married first Walter Edward Neal Turner in the Tadcaster registration district, in the June quarter 1922. A daughter, Muriel Annie Grace, was born in 1925. Walter Edward Neal Turner died in 1940 in Slough.
Elsie May married secondly Thomas Andrew Blatcher. Two children were born to them. She died suddenly of a brain haemorrhage in early January 1955 whilst shopping in Bromley and was cremated 18 January 1955, aged 56.