Per his draft records and other census records Ora Lincoln Bagley was born on November 22, 1882 in the vicinity of the Mississippi River railroad town of Wyalusing, Grant County in the southwestern corner of Wisconsin. Ora Bagley was called throughout most of his adult life by his middle name Lincoln or "Link" for short. Most records list Lincoln Bagley as the oldest son of Dorlen D. Bagley and the German-born Agusta (or Augusta) Newman, although Lincoln's birth preceded his parents' marriage by five months. At the time of the 1900 Federal census, the 16 year-old Ora Bagley was listed working as a farm laborer for his maternal grandparents at Wyalusing, Wisconsin, where he continued to reside until at least 1918. In 1910 he as listed as a hired man living with his mother's relatives in Wyalusing, and at the time of his 1918 draft registration he was married, living in Wyalusing, while working for the railroad in nearby LaCrosse, Wisconsin. Sometime around 1912 Lincoln Bagley married the 17 year-old Iowa native Carrie Louella Mundon, who had moved with her widower father William Mundon to Wyalusing by the time of the 1910 census. In the first seven years of their marriage in Grant County, Wisconsin, three children, Hylla, Stanley and Fay (a son) Bagley were born.

By January 1920, Lincoln Bagley had moved to Burbank Township, Kandiyohi County, in central Minnesota with his family to farm with his parents and his many brothers. In 1930 Lincoln Bagley is enumerated as having his own farm in Roseville Township, Kandiyohi County, Minnesota. In addition to his own family of five, Lincoln has residing with him in 1930 his father-in-law Will F. Mundon, three Hamilton nieces and nephews, and his bachelor brother Orlean Bagley. Lincoln died on March 3, 1937 in Kandiyohi County, Minnesota and is buried in Roseville Cemetery west of the town of Hawick in Kandiyohi County, Minnesota.