He’s The Arch Deluxe Healer Brings Golden Touch To Clients’ Feet, And His Fans Will Walk Miles To See Him
Jim Ellis’ meaty thumb presses repeatedly into the underside of a woman’s big toe as if he’s waiting for it to beep or buzz. He searches her face for a sign, then presses again until his thumbnail leaves a crevice.
“You should feel that. That’s your pituitary gland,” he says, his eyes squinting at her with concern. “If you can’t feel anything, your pituitary gland isn’t working.”
The woman shrugs helplessly, then gasps as Jim’s thumb apparently hits pay dirt. Satisfied, Jim begins probing the rest of her foot.
“That’s your liver. That’s your pineal gland,” he murmurs as his huge mitts swallow her foot from toe to heel. He stops near her arch and looks up. “Feels like you have a bone out of alignment in your neck.”
For most of his 96 years, Jim has read feet. His own feet double-crossed him shortly after birth. Infantile paralysis left him nearly immobile and with club feet for his first 15 years.
Shriners Hospital for Crippled Children got him moving, but walking on the oddly turned feet in voluminous corrective shoes never was easy.
“I didn’t want to see anyone like me,” he says. “My stomach would churn to see people do anything that might cripple them.”
He hated to see anyone hurting, which led him to do whatever he could to alleviate pain. When his mother’s headaches disappeared after he massaged her feet, Jim decided the feet were the body’s control center.
Fascinated with this theory, he studied books on human physiology. Jim linked most physical problems to reflexes he found in the feet. He believed massaging the right spot could unleash the body’s natural healing mechanisms.
If the body needed jump-starting, Jim recommended vitamins and minerals based on his studies of what the body normally releases on its own.
Jim massaged family and friends and their friends and their friends. Like a parent doling out lemon slices for sore throats, he never charged for his homespun health care. He supported himself with welding jobs.
Until the 1960s. By then, his reputation as a reflexologist had earned him a steady and, sometimes, star-studded clientele. He lived in Las Vegas, and operated two offices on donations alone.
In 1973, Nevada’s Board of Medical Examiners accused him of practicing medicine without a license. Jim argued that he did nothing more than most parents, claimed no medical training and was no different than a health food store. The charges were dropped.
He moved north of Bonners Ferry in 1980 to retire, but clients found him. They came from as far as Hawaii and Aruba with heartburn, diabetes, pneumonia. Jim smiled, invited them into his cluttered home and lifted their bare feet onto his knee free of charge, as usual.
“I think he was created by God to help people,” says Pamela Wynne, a client and friend.
As Jim has aged, the stream of clients hasn’t slowed and neither has he. He speaks with the clarity of a man half his age but teases with the freedom that comes with long life. He moves free of arthritis. Only his cumbersome feet hold him back.
“I’ve said my whole life there’s a better way,” he says, patting the woman’s foot gently before releasing it. “I feel great about what I’ve done and I’ll keep doing it until I die.”
On the move
If you have long-time friends, cherish them. My daughter has had several close friends in her 17 years but all have moved away.
This year, she lost two close friends to moves out of state and one to a year-long foreign exchange. It’s tough to be down three friends during high school’s senior year.
They’ll write to each other, but it’s not the same. Do you have a special friendship that’s survived moves and marriages, growing up and growing older? Share it and charm Cynthia Taggart, “Close to Home,” 608 Northwest Blvd., Suite 200, Coeur d’Alene 83814; FAX to 765-7149; or call 765-7128.
, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color photo