Emma Allen Bowlby was born to David Sovereign Bowlby and Martha Esther Murphy Bowlby in Waterloo in 1862. When she was 21, in 1884, she married the 39 year old Gardiner Boyd. Gardiner Boyd was born in 1845 to Mossom Boyd and Caroline Dunsford of Bobcaygeon Ontario. The couple had three children, Gardiner Mossom (born 1885), Mary Olive (born 1886) and Frieda Kathleen (born 1888).
Emma died in 1897 and her husband in 1898 leaving her children to be raised by their maternal grandparents, and later by their father’s half brother.