Kisiah Jones was born on June 26, 1839, in New York to Robert Jones and Mary Mannings. His father was a farmer who owned $400 of real estate and $400 of personal property by 1860. They lived in Westfield, New York, until the 1850s, when they moved to Ripley, New York.
She married Ira Nichols around 1862, and they had at least three children: Charles, born around 1864; Cora, born around 1868; and Thomas, born around 1872. Her husband worked as a day laborer in Ripley, and by 1870, they owned $200 of real estate. They moved to Michigan in the 1870s, and the couple probably got divorced sometime in the 1870s. She married William Pettis on September 25, 1879. They lived in Holton, Michigan, and her husband worked as a farmer. She died of “chronic interstitial pneumonia” in Orleans, Michigan, on October 19, 1907.