[2] At the age of twenty-two, Scarr married an Englishman residing in Twinsburg, Ohio, and, shortly afterwards, began to contribute occasionally to some of the periodicals of the day under various pen names.

[3] Upon the outbreak of the American Civil War, her brother enlisted in the Union Army, and soon after the battle of Shiloh, in which he fought, died of disease brought on by the hardships and exposure of a soldier's life.

Emma's husband, throughout the war years, had been very outspoken in his denunciation of the secession project and all those favoring it, thus making enemies of certain secret sympathizers in the neighborhood.

A few days preceding the date of Abraham Lincoln's assassination, while the family was on a visit to her parents, some 20 miles (32 km) away, a friend came on horseback from Twinsburgh to inform them that their house, together with all its contents, had been burned down during the night.

Then came the news of the President's murder, and to her depressed mind, all the world seemed going to "wreck and ruin," especially when, nine weeks later, her husband's mills with their entire contents were destroyed by fire.

As none of the property had been insured, this misfortune reduced the formerly well-to-do pair to comparative poverty, and soon afterward, they left the town, removing to Painesville, Ohio.