Sarah Nenney (maiden name: Galbreath) was born on October 28, 1809, in Tennessee. She married Charles P. Nenney on October 2, 1828, and they had at least six children: William, born around 1829; Ann, born around 1832; Charles, born around 1835; Lucy, born around 1837; James, born on January 11, 1841; and Catherine, born around 1844. They lived in Jefferson County, Tennessee, and her husband worked as a farmer. By 1850, he owned $2,250 of real estate. Her husband died on December 12, 1857, and by 1880, she was living in her son Charles’s household in Russellville, Tennessee. She died on February 15, 1899. The town’s Presbyterian church tolled its bells ninety times—“each [representing] a year in the life of Mrs. Sarah Nenney.”