Venila Hubbard (maiden name: Crittenden) was born on May 16, 1837, in Plainfield, Massachusetts, to Reuben and Loney Crittenden. Her father worked as a tanner. She grew up and attended school in Plainfield. She married Albert Newell Hubbard in Hawley, Massachusetts, on October 3, 1854, and they had four children: Aline, born around 1856; Albert Clarence, born around 1858; Elmer, born around 1867; and Eli, born around 1881.
They lived in Windsor, and her husband worked as a farm laborer. By 1860, they owned $105 of personal property. A decade later, they owned $925 of real estate. She belonged to the local Congregational church, served as president of the local Women’s Christian Temperance union, and was an active member of the Women’s Relief Corps. In 1904, a writer observed that her “domestic life has been pleasant and she is alive to every worthy purpose.” Her husband died on July 24, 1905. She applied for a widow’s pension in August 1905 and eventually secured one. By 1910, she was living with her son Eli in Windsor. She moved to Cummington, Massachusetts, in the 1910s, and she died of a cerebral hemorrhage there on May 19, 1920.