Elizabeth Welch Gates was born on November 11, 1895, in Hartford, Connecticut. She attended Hartford Public High School and graduated from Mount Holyoke College in 1917. In 1919, she graduated from the Finch School in New York City with a Secretarial Certificate. She worked at a variety of institutions from 1919-1937. In 1943, she married David Doffler, and divorced shortly thereafter. Elizabeth Welch Gates died on April 12, 1983, in Willimantic, Connecticut.