Mary Emma Burdick was born on August 14, 1839, in Connecticut to Charles C. Burdick and Nancy Rix. Her father was a farmer who owned $3,500 of real estate and $2,000 of personal property by 1860. The family lived in Pomfret, Connecticut, until the 1850s, when they moved to Brooklyn, Connecticut.
She married Amos Kendall, and the couple had no children. They moved to Providence, Rhode Island, in the 1860s, but they returned to Brooklyn in the 1870s. Her husband worked as a farmer and hoop skirt dealer, and by 1870, he owned $650 of personal property. He died in the 1910s, and by 1920, she was living by herself in Danielson, Connecticut. She died on April 14, 1926.