Frances Eugenia Doty was born on July 4, 1843, in New York to Henry L. Doty and Lucretia Holdridge. Her father was a farmer who owned $4,000 of real estate and $500 of personal property by 1860. She lived in Westmoreland, New York, until the early 1850s, when the family moved to Weyauwega, Wisconsin. She began corresponding with Francis M. Guernsey in September 1861. In August 1862, when Guernsey considered enlisting in the Union army, she wrote, "I admire your patraism very much if every man in the north would talk as much in favor of the union and act accordingly I presume we would not have such terrible works." She married Guernsey on August 29, 1865, and their daughter Ella was born around 1868.
They moved to Clintonville, Wisconsin, in 1867, and her husband worked as a lawyer and postmaster. By 1870, they owned $1,500 of real estate and $1,500 of personal property. They moved to Santa Barbara, California, in the early 1900s, and her husband died there on June 24, 1919. By 1920, she was living in her daughter Ella’s household in Santa Barbara. She died on July 17, 1921.