Clara Idella Plimpton was born on December 30, 1848 in Walpole, Massachusetts. She graduated from Mount Holyoke in 1871 and married Henry L. Kendall in 1875. He was a clergyman and a graduate of Brown University. They had two children: Helen (Mount Holyoke College, Class of 1900) and Henry (Amherst College, Class of 1899). Idella Plimpton Kendall died on January 23, 1941 in Walpole, Massachusetts.