Her marriage to Englishman Algernon Sartoris produced children, but the couple later became estranged, and she was granted a divorce.

Nellie Grant was born on July 4, 1855, in Wistonwisch, Missouri, near St. Louis, on the estate slave plantation of Col. Frederick Dent, known as White Haven.

She was first named Julia, at the insistence of her father, but was christened Ellen Wrenshall at 18 months to honor her dying grandmother.

"[4] On the voyage home she met her future husband Algernon Charles Frederick Sartoris, an Englishman of "minor gentry", and potential heir to his family's fortune.

[9] The interior of the White House, including the walls, staircases, and chandeliers were covered with lilies, tuberoses, and spirea.

"[10] The Marine Band played Mendelssohn's Wedding March, while President Grant escorted Nellie to the East Room, filled with 250 guests.

[11] Nellie's wedding dress, trimmed in Brussel pointed lace, was reportedly worth thousands of dollars.

[3] After the wedding, the newlywed couple traveled on a special train to New York in a Pullman palace car, especially made for the Vienna Exposition, covered by British and American flags.

[12] When author Henry James visited the family at Adelaide's home in Southampton, he described having a brilliant dinner conversation, but added "poor little Nellie Grant sits speechless on the sofa, understanding neither head nor tail.

[12] By 1889, Sartoris's drinking problem was out of control;[12] the storybook marriage that charmed both the British and American public had ended.

[12] In 1912, Nellie married Frank Hatch Jones, a lawyer originally from Springfield, Illinois, who lived in Chicago.