Lillie Flynn was born in Alabama, grew up in Kansas City and Brownsville, Texas, where she married Martin Hanson Jr. She had three children, who remained in Martin’s custody after a divorce. She had two more daughters, Marion (birthplace unknown) and Josephine (Fort Wayne, Indiana), who were adopted in Fort Wayne by two different families. A second marriage, to Otis Pontious, was not successful either, and Lillie then lived on her own in St Louis for about 25 years.