Stephen L. Root was born around 1849 in Ohio to Timothy and Adeline Root. His father was a farmer who owned $4,500 of real estate and $2,050 of personal property by 1860. He grew up and attended school in Austinburg, Ohio. He moved to Kingsbury in the Dakota Territory in the 1870s, and he worked as a farmer there. He married Martha Jolly there around 1883, and their daughter Lola was born around 1900. They also adopted a daughter named Elsie, who was born around 1880. They lived in De Smet, South Dakota. His wife died in 1927, and by 1930, he was living with a widowed woman named Lydia J. Day in Watertown, South Dakota. He died in Kingsbury County, South Dakota, on June 1, 1940.

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