Parna Jane Crist was born on March 2, 1834, 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. As a young girl, she reportedly “became afflicted with paralysis.” The family remained in Plainfield until the 1860s, when they moved to Durant, Iowa. She never married, and she remained in her parents’ household until at least 1880. By 1900, she was living in her sister Mary’s household in Fairfield, Kansas. A decade later, she was living with relatives in Center, Kansas. She died there on August 8, 1918.