Israel John Conaroe was born on January 3, 1857, in Marion County, Indiana, to John and Gabriella Conaroe. His father probably died in the late 1850s, and his mother married William Pugh in the 1860s. He grew up and attended school in Marion County, and by 1870, he was working as a farmhand on his stepfather’s farm.
He married a woman named Martha around 1879, and they had at least two children: Shelton, born around 1880; and Alvin, born around 1881. They lived in Indianapolis, Indiana, and Conaroe worked as a carpenter and bookkeeper. He got divorced in the 1910s, and he married Bertha Brunson on September 24, 1916. He died of bronchial pneumonia in Indianapolis on February 6, 1920.