Amanda Phelps was born on May 22, 1859, in Brandon, Vermont, to Jarvis Phelps and Hannah Reynolds. Her father was a laborer who owned $50 of personal property by 1860. She grew up and attended school in Brandon, and she married Antoine Bush there on November 20, 1881. They had at least three children: Carroll, born around 1887; Anna, born around 1892; and Bernard, born around 1896. They lived in Brandon, and her husband worked as a farm laborer and “plumber’s helper.” Her husband died in 1939, and by 1940, she was living in her daughter Anna’s household in Brandon. She died there on February 9, 1944.