Her father, Edward Quin, who was at one time a member of the New South Wales Legislature, owned a dairy farm called 'The Leasowes' near Fern Tree Gully and a sheep station called 'Tarella' in far western New South Wales between Wilcannia and White Cliffs. One of eight children, 'Ella' was educated in Adelaide, but spent most of her life on stations. The summers there were exceedingly hot, and whenver possible her mother sent the girls south to 'The Leasowes' for the summer months. Ella's first writing was short sketches of station life, published under the pseudonym 'James Adare' in the
Pastoral Review . At the editor's suggestion, she wrote some stories for children, which she forwarded to
Ethel Turner (Mrs Curlewis) (q.v.), hoping to have them published in Sydney newspapers. However, Turner strongly recommended that they be published as books, and so her first book,
Gum Tree Brownie, came to be published in 1910. Ella's younger sister, Hazel, was at school with Ida Rentoul, and it was through this association that
Ida Rentoul Outhwaite (q.v.) came to illustrate Quin's children's stories. Ella married T. M. Daskein, one of the proprietors of Morden Station in far northwest NSW.
