Adella was born in Aztalan, Wisconsin, but moved with her family to Floyd County Iowa, near Nashua, when she was 10 years old. She had 5 sisters, and also a brother who died in infancy--we do not know what his name was or when and where he died, but it seems likely it was in Wisconsin. Her father was a sometimes farmer, but made 6 separate trips to California before finally moving there, during which he left his wife and daughters in charge of the farm.

Adella met her husband, Socrates Sanford, in the Nashua area. They were married in her parents' parlor by an Episcopaleon minister, although they attended services at the Little Brown Church in the Vale (it's Congregational). Adella and Socrates's first fivel children were born in Iowa, and then they moved to North Dakota about 1884, and lived in several different towns there. Four more children were born in North Dakota. Socrates worked in several different entrepreneurial pursuits, including as a grocery store wholesaler, a grain elevator operator, and a hardware store owner. Adella, of course, took care of all the children while he traveled for his work. She was an excellent seamstress and quilter and made all their clothing. In 1901, Adella took advantage of a travelling Episcopalian minister to have all the children remaining at home get a "proper" baptism. (Socrates was from a family that attended Congregational churches, although he did not seem to be rigorous about attendance at a certain church.)

After the children were grown, Adella spent most of her time in Minneapolis, living with two of her daughters--Edna and Esther-- who had moved there, while Socrates remained in North Dakota most of the time, living with their daughter Helen. Adella liked a lot of activity and talking to people and things going on around her, while Socrates liked things to be quiet and orderly. They visited each other, and their children who lived in one place or the other, several times a year for a few weeks.

As well as everyday family life, I know several stories from my mother and grandmother (Adella's daughter) about special activities she engaged in during her time in Minneapolis. When she received a small pension check each month, she would immediately head out to a local store to buy small pieces of fabric, out of which she made beautiful patchwork quilts for each of her Minneapolis grandchildren. Sometime around 1930 she traveled by train by herself to California to visit her sisters and daughter Maude living there; my mother remembers that she took hard-boiled eggs to eat for meals along the way. In Minneapolis, there were various delivery people and people who collected things thrown out in the alley, and Adella like to talk to them each time she saw them. Her sister Alameda ("Aunt Meadie") and Alameda's daughter Beulah lived nearby in Minneapolis and they saw each other frequently.

Adella was living with her daughter Edna at the time of her death--she used to switch back and forth living in the homes of her two daughters in Minneapolis. Socrates had died in North Dakota a few years previously, but his ashes were sent to Minneapolis and kept in a little drawer at Sunset Cemetery (per my mother's childhood memory) until Adella's death, at which time their ashes were placed together.