Martha Esther Bowlby (nee Murphy) was born July 23, 1836 in Montreal, Quebec. She came to Berlin (now Kitchener) in 1854, where she married Dr. David Sovereign Bowlby in 1856. An active member of the community, Bowlby was the first secretary treasurer of the Kitchener-Waterloo Ladies' Hospital Auxiliary, was a member of the St. John's Anglican Church, and served at one time as the first regent of the Princes of Wales chapter of the Imperial Order Daughters of the Empire. She died in 1925 after being badly burned in an accident at her home. Bowlby was buried at Mount Hope Cemetery alongside her husband, who died in Rome, Italy in 1904.