Born during the Nauvoo days of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Clarissa is the fourth child of nine children born to Tunis Rappleye and Louisa Elizabeth Cutler. She was born in Macedonia, a small Mormon settlement in Hancock County, 20 miles east of Nauvoo. At the time Clarissa was born the settlement would have been known as Ramus.

Tunis left his family in Iowa in 1847 and traveled with the original company of pioneers to the Salt Lake Valley. He returned to Iowa with the company that traveled back before winter. In the next few years Tunis made several trips back and forth finally taking his family to Utah in 1852. They settled in Lehi and in early 1854 Louisa died there giving birth to her ninth child.

According to plural marriage doctrine, Tunis married three more wives. When Clarissa married on February 19, 1857 in Salt Lake City, Utah, she became a plural wife to John Smiley Lott. On May 22, 1860 in Lehi, Utah, Clarissa gave birth to her only child, a son they named Adelbert Franklin Lott.

John moved his families south to central Utah. Clarissa's father also moved his families south. At some point it appears that Clarissa and John were living apart. It could have just been because of the persecution of the Federal government against those practicing plural marriage. At any rate, John and his first and third wives were in Joseph, Sevier County, Utah. Tunis Rappleye was in Kanosh, Millard County, Utah. According to the little evidence available, Clarissa was also in Kanosh. It was there she died in 1871 when her son was nearly eleven years old.

The Kanosh Cemetery does not have any records that show Clarissa's burial there. But she doesn't show up anywhere else either. Clarissa's name is on the monument erected to her father's families.