Isabella J. Smolk was born around November 1850 in Ohio to David Smolk and Rebecca Kennedy. Her father was a farmer who owned $1,100 of real estate and $800 of personal property by 1860. She grew up and attended school in York, Ohio, and she married Horace Warner around 1871. They had two children: Charles, born around 1872; and Laura, born around 1889. They lived in York, and her husband worked as a day laborer. She died in 1932.