Ellen Kronen is President of the Lismore Chamber of Commerce and Industry. She is also a web designer, entrepreneur and creative crafter, amongst other things. Ellen met with Sara Browne on campus at the Business Hub to share her story.

I grew up in Sydney, West Pennant Hills, a very white-collar, middle-class kind of background.

Dad worked, Mum stayed at home. I have an older brother and Mum and Dad had another boy who had aggressive childhood leukemia and he died when he was five, before I came along. Mum and Dad adopted me when I was a baby. There’s a photo of Mum and Dad and John my brother and Mum has written underneath, ‘the sad ones’. That was just before they adopted me. 

Adoption was not commonly talked about. I always knew but it was not something that we ever talked about. To be honest, I think Mum and Dad kind of forgot – not in a bad way. It was just like I was family, regardless of how I came to be in the family, it was almost irrelevant.

Mum had that view with a lot of my friends as I was growing up, very welcoming. Some of my friends viewed her as a sounding board for a whole bunch of things. That was the environment we grew up in.

We did a lot of community work. My grandfather was a minister, lots of missionaries in previous generations of the family. Community work was always something that we did. My childhood was spent doing regular things but church was always part of it.

By the time I was early teens, Mum decided she didn’t want to go to church anymore so we would go to volunteer in aged care homes or sing in community choirs, Meals on Wheels, Red Cross - that kind of thing - giving back to the community that way because that was her view of being a good Christian. 

with my family, 1963

I used to love going to Meals on Wheels with Mum. I was a bit dorky as a kid, I wasn’t into sport but I did play hockey for a while which is a vicious game when you’re a teenage girl. I did ballet, that was my thing. I loved it. At about 14, I can remember saying to Mum that I wanted to be the next Margot Fontaine. At the time, early 70s, it would have involved going overseas to study and it would have been super expensive.

In the end, I just couldn’t ask my parents to do that because I would have been on the other side of the planet costing them an arm and a leg. There was no guarantee of success. I knew in my heart that I was not good enough. I put everything into it but there were others in my class who were just so much better than me. Boys too – boys doing ballet in the 70s, that’s a bold move. It came naturally to them and I had to work really hard, and I did. I got honours in my exams and things like that but it was just not enough. I did classes seriously until I was 17 which is old by ballet standards. I kept doing classes until I was in my early 20s for fitness. 

I had no idea what I wanted to do when school finished and Mum just said, you have got to get a job. I had no problem with that. Most of my friends wanted to go to uni and a lot of them did the gap year and went travelling. I never really had any great desire to do that. I wanted to buy a car and work.

My first job was in the chairman’s office at David Jones department store in the city. I worked there for five years. I loved it. I left there when the Adelaide Steamship Trading Company bought David Jones, whenever that was, and they made me redundant. I think my payout was $400, at the time it was a huge amount of money. I think I was earning about $80 a week. I can’t remember what I did with the payout, probably spent it on shoes. I used to buy a lot of expensive shoes. 

I was a late bloomer. I didn’t move out of home until I was 20 or 21. The first time I moved out was a disaster, my brother saved me from that and then I moved back home and eventually moved out again a year later. It was the wrong people, a flat in Epping on the highway, very bland. Some of my friends had moved out and were happily living in the inner west but being a north shore girl, the inner west was a whole other world for me. 

Family holiday in Byron around 1970

I used to spend lots of time going out around Oxford Street in the late 70s, early 80s. It was a blast. The gay community looked after all of the girls who were in any of those clubs and it didn’t really change until AIDS became a risk and then the atmosphere changed. Patches, Ruby’s, Tropicana, lots of the pubs. It wasn’t uncommon for us to go out, catch a train into the city, dressed in our disco gear, literally dance all night, go to the Bourbon and Beefsteak for breakfast, go home, get changed and go to work.  

I went to work for an advertising agency called Sales Rise, part of global agency USP Needham at the time. That was in North Sydney, like every advertising agency then. Then I worked for another global agency on new business presentations. I loved that job. It was pre-internet, pre-powerpoint, almost pre-computer. I actually had a word processor. My job was to make the presentations look gorgeous. I hadn’t done any study or training for it.

I was creative in different ways I guess. I used to do crafting, knitting, make stuff, be out in the garden with Mum and Dad – a dorky kid. I used to make my own clothes. I would also set up for the meetings, lunches and functions. Sometimes I’d have to be reception at the front desk and Annie, the receptionist had been with the company forever and she had a beautiful voice. If people didn’t answer their phone, there was a PA system and you’d have to say ‘would Mr Jones please come to the front desk.’ I don’t think I’ll ever forget the first time I had to do that because I was on lunchtime relief and I had to find someone so I pushed the button down so I could speak and nothing came out. It was terrible stage fright. Sometimes you’d forget to take your hand off the button…. 

I went to work at Monahan Dayman Adams which was an Australian agency also in North Sydney. I worked on a retail account there and I was part of the team that did the ads for the Sun and the Mirror. There were dreadful TV commercials, very common at the time, that would advertise what’s in the paper tomorrow. You just don’t see them anymore. 

I moved in with my partner and got married. We wanted to buy a house and Sydney, even in the late 80s, was super expensive. We were living in Neutral Bay, my husband was in the army based at Holsworthy. I had no desire to live in Holsworthy. We chose to have our own non-army house in Neutral Bay and I loved it there but to buy a house was an extraordinary amount compared to what we were earning.

I was reluctant to move from Sydney because all my family and friends were there. My husband – we’ve since divorced – he’d moved with the army every couple of years so he was much more nomadic than me. We’d made the decision to buy a house so we started looking in Brisbane and worked our way down the coast and lobbed into Lismore on a perfect Spring day.  

The sky was that incredible blue, not a cloud anywhere, it was perfect. There were all these gorgeous old houses, we wanted an old house that we could do up. We fell in love with South Lismore and then asked what the 74 meant on all the telegraph poles.

Some of the houses we really loved but we weren’t prepared to take the risk so we bought a house in Lismore Heights and we always joked that if it flooded up there, the whole state would be in trouble. But that water is coming higher and higher up that hill every time. It’s one of those weatherboard, Edwardian houses that has a lot of charm. Incredibly cold in winter and stinking hot in summer but it was gorgeous. That’s where we had our two girls.  

Both of them are now in their mid-20s. One lives and works here, the other is in Brisbane and about to move to Darwin. They went to Lismore High School, started working in various jobs when they were old enough. Neither have expressed any desire to go to university but that might change. You’re never too old to start something like that. 

MOMA New York, 2011

I’ve been involved with the Chamber of Commerce for 10 years. I worked here at the uni. I started at the tourism school but then after I had the kids, I came back to work and was bored and talked my way into a project role to re-do the university’s website. That was back in 98. I’m self-taught with web design. Back then, every page was basically handcrafted. No Shopify or anything like that.

I had a fantastic team, we built web applications like the staff directory and the student intranet. I did that for about 12 years. I absolutely loved it. It was my dream job. Unfortunately, I was made redundant in 2010 and decided that I would take a year off and work out what I was going to do with my life.

I enrolled in an interior design degree although realistically that was never going to pay the bills. I started my own business, Leumesin Designs, building websites for local businesses. That’s when I joined the Chamber because I was female in IT, there weren’t that many web designers here at the time. Lots of graphic designers but not so many people doing web design.  

I worked from home as a micro business. I had just come out of a really difficult 12 months where I struggled to keep a hold of my house after being made redundant. I went on the NEIC program – new enterprise incentive scheme – I was ready to start the business. I went to the gym one day, tripped and fell warming up and broke my wrist then couldn’t work for another three months. There’s only so long that any savings that you’ve got will last.  

When I finally got back to work, I joined the Chamber. I was invited to join the board quite early on. It’s difficult for any volunteer group like that to get people to commit to giving up some time. I hesitated because I didn’t know what was involved.

I put my hand up for President a couple of years after that. People say they’re passionate about lots of things, it’s an overused word, but genuinely I am passionate about small business here. There are so many here, even though people might not think about microbusiness much but so many people are self-employed in their own businesses. If they had to go out and find jobs, there aren’t enough bigger businesses to employ them. It is a driver for the economy here. Without those small businesses helping the economy, we’d be stuck. Leumesin Designs is still going. I do website maintenance, I don’t do so much new builds anymore, I do some and I really enjoy it.  

My Dad passed away at the end of 2020 and I was caring for him. That was a really difficult time, he was a tough old bloke. He was 98 when he died. He and Mum moved here to Lismore 25 years ago.

Mum had breast cancer and she passed away 20 years ago. Dad just missed her every single day. He was happy enough but he and Mum had been married for 50 years so his life was very different without her. He was very self-sufficient. He lived independently until he was 97 then we made the decision that he needed a higher level of care.

We increased the amount of support he had and it meant that Dad and I could still have our father/daughter relationship and the care was separate. He said that he didn’t want me to have to give him a shower and do those things. That was not on his radar. I was happy about that, some people can do that and they love it and I have great admiration for them.

He wanted to keep our relationship with me, and my daughter that lives here, very strong and keep it a little bit removed from the nitty-gritty of daily care. I’d still cook lunch and take it up every day because I wasn’t working.

During the pandemic, for older people, it was devastating to have no visitors except for family. They even closed the dining room. He lived at Chauvel Village at Goonellabah. He would go for a walk and sing while he walked, he stopped singing for a long time.  

One day in 2020, I walked past a shop in the Star Court Arcade – which has always been my favourite – and I thought I could do something with that. So, with yet another one of my spur-of-the-moment decisions, I went to the real estate and got the keys and was in there a few weeks later, Made In Lismore.

It was as much therapy for me as anything else because I love making things. There are so many local crafters who had lost their markets because of the pandemic so I had quite a band of local crafters in the shop with me.  

Friendship Festival team

Dad was hugely curious about everything that was going on with that. Around then he had a fall which for a lot of older people is the beginning of a very sharp decline. Shortly after that, he moved into Caroona for some respite. He had another fall and broke his hip and ended up having surgery. We wanted for him to be well enough to get out of bed unassisted.

Within weeks it became clear that was not going to happen. He waited, I think, for my brother to come down from Noosa for a last visit. Border restrictions meant John couldn’t come down earlier. That was a very difficult time for everyone. Dad passed away very peacefully two weeks before Christmas that year. 

I kept the business going to the point where I’d moved into a bigger shop, still in the Star Court, in October 21. I love that arcade. November I was still getting set up but December was amazing. I think for everyone it was the best month. Everyone was out supporting the local shops and it was really good recovery from two really crappy years. Then in January, it fell off a cliff because Covid took off again and people stayed at home. Then of course in February it started to pick up a bit, then we had the disaster. 

I packed up everything. I have to say I think everyone in town, including north and south, had a much better and stronger flood plan than we did in 2017. My perspective was different because in 2017 I joined Helping Hands and I didn’t have the shopfront business, I was working from home.

A lot of people didn’t appreciate how devastating a flood can be because the flood previous to 2017 wasn’t as big. On that weekend, people helped other people. Random strangers, football teams just wandering past, do you need a hand? It was amazing. Everything that I left in the shop could be washed. Anything that could be wrecked in water came home with me. Anything at ground level was weighted down with sandbags and tied down. It was secure as it could be but all washable, frames of shelving and that kind of stuff. It’s all still in the lounge room of my granny flat which is...challenging. 

I’m going back, absolutely. I’ve got some great ideas for some of the other spaces in the arcade. I’ve got some people interested in doing some collaborative things in there. I know that people talk a lot about not going back or moving the CBD. Everyone has to make their own decision about how they move forward but overwhelmingly, I think people want to go back to the CBD. I love the vibe there. If you put my shop in Goonellabah, it wouldn’t work. That’s not to say that the shop next to me doesn’t move to Goonellabah and does really well. In fact, people have moved and have been able to re-establish in new locations. You need to be able to do the best thing for you and your business. 

For people who do want to be in the CBD, I think there are some things that the Chamber can do to support better planning. You can always plan better. You can always have more support. People don’t realise the impact when they say ‘you should bulldoze it and move’. I’ve said to people, hang on, you’re talking about people’s lives. If people want to stay, consider that in your comments. I find it really distressing. There’s families who have had businesses in the CBD for several generations. There is some beautiful history and heritage there.

We can’t ignore the river, it’s there. But we need to care for it and be much more mindful about what we do and not go back blindly ignoring the risk, that would be foolish. The CBD has a special place in Lismore’s history. Where do a few thousand businesses go while you find alternate locations? There isn’t enough. Businesses need to go back and rebuild because they need it to support themselves and the business economy needs the people. You can’t have one without the other.  

Before I had my first baby was when I thought about following up my birth parents. It was not something that we ever talked about at home. It was just normal. Eventually, I said to Dad ‘this is what I want to do’ and he said ‘why didn’t you do it earlier…I didn’t even think that you wanted to’.

It was a private adoption and the hospital where I was born is no longer there but they kept good records. I requested my records and have since met my biological mother. We got on famously well, we still sort of keep in contact but there hasn’t been any burning need to visit all the time. She lives in Victoria. I’ve got two half brothers.

One of them contacted me and suggested I go down as a surprise for her 60th birthday, some years ago. It was an instant connection with my brother when he picked me up from the airport. It was a bit of a shock for my biological mother I have to say, but she handled it well. It was really good to meet her and the kids know about her, there’s no big secret there. It’s kind of useful to ask if there’s any history of anything in the family. She has been up here, she’s a bit of a traveller, goes on driving holidays with her husband. He’s not my father.

I never had any particular desire to track down my biological father. I was curious about him. They were very young when Betty had me and he did a runner. Part of me was interested but part of me thought he was a bit of an @#!%$. That was what happened at the time.

Adoption was quite different through the mid-70s when there was no single mother support. If you didn’t have support from your family, you were cooked. Betty’s family were very supportive by all accounts. She was lucky in that regard. And I guess I’ve had a fortunate life. She wanted better things for me than she thought she could manage.  

I have a thing for fortune cookies

I don’t know what keeps me in Lismore. I have friends here, Dad’s brother lived in Kyogle for his whole life so there is some connection here. I stayed here because of Dad even though he said, don’t stay on my account. But I said, you may be a tough old bloke in your 90s but I’m not going to leave you behind.

I really love it here. I love the business, the community. I’m building a house, that’s the 20-year plan but who knows? When I’m 80 I might go live in a granny flat in one of the kid's backyards wherever they may be.  

The 20-year plan is that I’ll be here in my house that has no mowable lawns and I’ll plant some koala trees and a veggie garden and I’ll keep volunteering.

The Chamber is primary for me. I’ve actually stepped back from other committees. I still volunteer for the Friendship Festival when it’s on, the Stella Network. I just joined the CWA, I never thought I’d do that. There’s lots that I can do here. I want to get back to crafting. I’d like to refocus the business. 

I’ve got no power yet at the shop. No one downstairs in the arcade is functioning yet so it would make sense to do it as a group. The cinema opens at the end of July.

Realistically, I think I could re-open in September. The building is still drying out. Small Business Month typically would be in October but this year it’s in November so for the Chamber, I want to do something big.

We can try get something happening in the lead-up to Christmas and get people shopping in town. We want to encourage everyone to be shopping local and not going to the Gold Coast once for their Christmas shopping. Buy it here. Even if people don’t spend a huge amount.

The financial pressure on everyone at the moment is extreme. I’ve met people who’ve had a budget and they’ve divided it amongst half a dozen shops so they can spend a little bit in each of them and it makes a difference because businesses then know that locals are supporting them. You can get everything here.