Sarah A. Dooley (maiden name: Landen) was born on June 7, 1816, in New York to Elizabeth Landen. By the 1830s, she was living in Ohio, and she married Silas S. Dooley on October 19, 1837. They had at least seven children: Atellus, born around 1838; Luston, born around 1841; Rufus, born around 1842; Barton, born on June 4, 1844; Reuben, born on October 2, 1847; Selina, born around 1852; and Martha, born around 1854. They moved to Washington, Indiana, by the 1840s, and her husband worked as a farmer there. By 1850, they owned $2,400 of real estate. A decade later, they owned $3,320 of real estate and $800 of personal property, and by 1870, their wealth had grown to $7,800 of real estate and $2,000 of personal property. Her husband died on February 7, 1873, and by 1880, she was living in her son Reuben’s household in Washington. She died in Marshall County, Indiana, on April 4, 1894.