Celia Lamb was born in Monroe Township, Howard County, Indiana on December 10, 1849. Her parents were the Reverend Jehu Lamb and his wife May Ann Dillie Lamb. They had ten children: Lavina Ann, Ichabod D., Josiah Beecher, Celia Ellen, Lydia Matilda, Mary Elizabeth, Miles Camm, John Franklin, William Curtis and Ida Isabella Lamb. The Lambs were of the Quaker faith. After the birth of Celia the family moved out of Indiana to Iowa.
On October 2, 1865 Celia married a Civil War veteran William Penn McPherson. William's parents had been Quakers before the Civil War but some of them supported the Union by bearing arms and had to leave the Quaker faith which believes in pacifism. Celia was "reproved" for marrying out of the Quaker faith.
From 1865 until 1879 the McPhersons farmed in Iowa, they sold out and homesteaded in Fillmore, Nebraska. Their first Nebraska home was a sod house. William's father, John Templeton McPherson also moved from Iowa to Fillmore, Nebraska at this time.
William and Celia raised a large family of thirteen children: Curtis Ellsworth, Ambrose Edson, Dora Anne (who died at 2 1/2 years), Martin Luther, Faydella "Delia", Phoebe Viola, Lydia Eldora, Wm Bert, Beulah Mae, Charlotte, Benj. Franklin, Reuben Arthur and John Frederick McPherson. William Penn died in 1909 in Fairbury, Jefferson County, Nebraska.
Celia then married a younger man, Ira Garrison. They lived in the McPherson house turning the front room into a little grocery store.
About 1920 they sold out and moved to Eldon, Iowa. There they bought an old hotel, rented out rooms and made the lobby into a grocery. Celia had an infected toe that refused to heal, according to her granddaughter Irma Parker Lloyd. Celia Ellen Lamb McPherson Garrison died on April 27, 1923 in Eldon, Iowa. Her body was brought back to Fairbury by train and she was laid to rest near William Penn and their son William Bert McPherson.