Bernice Medbury Martin was born in 1882 in Fond Du Lac, Wisconsin. She and her husband Leslie lived in northern BC during the final two years of construction of the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway. In 1914, after the completion of the railway, Bernice and Leslie returned home to Wisconsin but finally settled in Los Angeles, California. Bernice gave birth to a daughter in 1919 and a son in 1922. She died in 1973 at 91 years of age.