Esther Fry (maiden name: Delo) was born on June 15, 1815, in Clarion County, Pennsylvania. She married Adam Fry, and they had at least eight children: George, born around 1834; Betsy, born around 1835; Andrew, born around 1838; Margaret, born around 1842; Isaac, born on January 17, 1844; Sarah, born on Marh 22, 1846; Esther, born around 1849; and Reuben, born around 1853. They lived in Venango County, Pennsylvania, and her husband worked as a farmer. By 1860, they owned $5,000 of real estate and $400 of personal property.
They moved to Concord, Indiana, in the 1860s and then to Colfax, Missouri, around 1871. According to an early biographer, she was a “devoted Christian.” She was a Lutheran until the 1870s, when she became a Methodist. Her husband died on August 1, 1894, and by 1900, she was living in her son Isaac’ household in Colfax. She died in Winston, Missouri, on November 7, 1908. At the time of her death, a local writer reported, her “descendants, living and dead, number 162 children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and great-great grandchildren.”