Jessie May Williams was born on November 5, 1870 in Saltlick Township, Fayette County, Pennsylvania to Thomas Jones Williams and Louisa Rumiser Williams. She attended Mount Holyoke Female Seminary in 1886-1887 then studied at schools in Pennsylvania and Ohio. She obtained a teacher's certificate and taught in Pennsylvania. She also served as the first female Justice of the Peace in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania. She married the Reverend Albert Freeman in 1893 and had two children. After his death in 1896 she married Edward Jacob Friedline, a farmer and carpenter, and had three children. She died at the age of seventy-two at Mt. Pleasant, Pennsylvania on July 27, 1943 (some sources give the year as 1941).