Deborah Crist was born on October 4, 1836, in New York to Peter M. Crist and Lillian Hunter. Her father was a carpenter who owned $1,600 of real estate in 1850. Her mother died in 1843, and her father married Nancy Frazier later that year. The family lived in New York until 1845, when they moved to Plainfield, Illinois.
She married Oliver Hemenway on December 16, 1868, and the couple apparently had no children. They lived in Farmington, Iowa, and her husband worked as a farmer. By 1870, they owned $600 of real estate. Her husband died on April 14, 1904. By 1910, she was living in Des Moines, Iowa, with her foster daughter Jennie. She died of influenza in Des Moines on March 26, 1926.