Herman B. Thurston was born around 1868 in Pennsylvania to William and Laura Thurston. His father was a blacksmith who owned $1,500 of real estate and $200 of personal property by 1860. He grew up and attended school in Sunbury, Pennsylvania, and he married Estelle Miller on June 22, 1898. They had at least two children: Ethel, born around 1903; and Glenn, born around 1905. They lived in Saint Marys, Pennsylvania, and he worked as a boilermaker. They moved to Crafton, Pennsylvania, in the 1910s. He died sometime after 1920.