Elizabeth Kemp was born on March 30, 1855, in Massachusetts, to Nathan Kemp and Lucinda Butterfield. Her father was a shoemaker who owned $150 of personal property by 1860, and he died on May 19, 1865. She grew up with her mother in Natick, Massachusetts, and by 1880, she was working in a shoe shop. She remained in Natick for the rest of her life, and she died of a “ventral hernia” there on November 21, 1905.