Adair grew up in a wealthy family who owned over 50,000 acres of land near Geneseo, New York and built a 13,000 square-foot house there in 1835.

[5] Her Wadsworth ancestors established Hartford, Connecticut, after moving from the Massachusetts Bay Colony.

[8] In 1876,[6] her second husband, John George Adair, became a partner with Charles Goodnight to found the JA Ranch.

[11] In addition to her life on the ranch, Adair "spent much of her time in her fashionable house" on Curzon Street in Mayfair district of London,[12] where she often entertained Edward VII (the son and successor of Queen Victoria) when he was Prince of Wales.

Before his death in 1864 from complications after serving in the Civil War,[15] they became the parents of two children:[16] In 1869, she married John George "Jack" Adair (1823–1885), a Scottish-Irish businessman and landowner.