Known by the nicknames Connie and Daisy, Adams was born in Cape Town and spent her early childhood on a farm in Tulbagh before moving to Warrenton.

She subsequently lived in Kimberley before getting married, settling in Johannesburg where she became active in the Housewives League of South Africa.

Her father, John Adams, was a farmer in the district of Tulbagh, and she spent the first few years of her life on the family farm, Waterfalls.

[1] At age 14, she attended Vredenburgh High School, in Cape Town where she won numerous prizes for botany, and then later trained as a teacher.

In 1910 she married her cousin, Peter Tardrew, moving first to Bloemhof and then to Johannesburg in 1936, where she became an active member of the Housewives League of South Africa.