Elsie Mannell Beebe was born in New York in 1842, the daughter of David W. Beebe and Lavinia Newell. She was the youngest of six children. She married Benjamin Franklin Gaylord in 1865. This marriage produced a son, Winfield Romeo. Benjamin died in 1872. Elsie then married Jacob Wilde Monismith, with whom she had two sons, Claude and Jesse.