Rebecca Allen was born on October 15, 1838, in Ohio to Jehu and Mary Allen. Her father was a farmer who owned $2,000 of real estate and $500 of personal property by 1860. She grew up and attended school in Greensboro, Indiana. The family moved to Blue Mound, Illinois, in the 1860s, and she served as secretary of the state’s Sunday School Convention.
She married George Brown around 1875, and they had two children: Benjamin, born around 1877; and Mary, born around 1881. They lived in Blue Mound, and her husband worked as a farmer. They moved to Oldtown, Illinois, in the late 1800s, and her husband died in the early 1900s. By 1920, she was living in her daughter Mary’s household in Israel, Ohio. She died in Fairhaven, Ohio, on June 2, 1926.