Alma Stannard (maiden name: Simmons) was born around 1840 in New York to Orin and Betsey Simmons. Her father was a farmer who owned $2,000 of real estate and $1,700 of personal property by 1860. She married Dwight Stannard around 1858, and they had at least seven children: Charles, born around 1861; Bessie, born around 1865; Ettie, born around 1871; Cora, born around 1873; Hattie, born around 1876; Ezra, born around 1879; and Emma, born around 1882. They lived in Boonville, New York. Her husband worked as a farm laborer, and she worked as a “domestic.” They moved to Forestport, New York, in the 1880s, and her husband died on April 20, 1916. She applied for a federal pension in May 1916 and eventually received one. She died in Boonville on March 30, 1923.