Mary Bybee was born on December 4, 1843, in Indiana to Washington Bybee and Mary Shobe. Her father was a farmer who owned $10,000 of real estate and $3,120 of personal property by 1860. She grew up and attended school in Franklin, Indiana. She married Joseph Smalley in the early 1870s, and they had at least four children: Harry, born around 1874; Della, born around 1876; Gertrude, born around 1879; and Lucinda, born around 1880. They lived in Sparta, Indiana, and her husband worked as a farmer. They moved to Seward, Indiana, in the late 1800s. Her husband died around 1920, and she died of arteriosclerosis in Claypool, Indiana, on December 6, 1924.