Adelaide Nims was born on July 23, 1845, near Maquoketa, Iowa, to Amasa and Adeline Nims. Her father was a farmer who owned $200 of real estate by 1850. She grew up and attended school in Maquoketa. She married Orson Ellithorpe on March 25, 1872, and they had at least four children: Arthur, born around 1875; Leonard, born around 1876; William, born around 1879; and Bernice, born around 1887.
They moved to Graham, Kansas, in the 1870s, and her husband worked as a blacksmith. They moved to Parson Creek, Missouri, in the late 1800s before returning to Maquoketa in the early 1900s. She was an active member of the Woman’s Relief Corps in the 1930s. She died there on March 21, 1935.