Annie Dorothy Trickey was born on October 12, 1847 to John Trickey, a contractor and lumber dealer, and his wife Elizabeth in Dover, New Hampshire. Annie attended the Fort Edward Institute, a Methodist Episcopal boarding seminary in Fort Edward, New York, where she met her future husband and became good friends with Julia Bulkley. After graduating with high honors, Annie married James C. Shelland in 1868 and, according to her obituary in the Aberdeen, South Dakota Daily News, "shared with him the vicissitudes of an itinerant minister's life." Annie (Trickey) Shelland died on May 7, 1897.

James Caedmon Shelland was born January 13, 1845 in Westford, New York, to Isaac and Abigail Wright Shelland, who were farmers. He attended Westford Academy and Fort Edward Institute, studied business, taught school, and worked as a journalist before entering Union College in 1868. He left Union in 1870 to join the Methodist Episcopal church as a pastor in the Wyoming Conference in Pennsylvania. He worked as a travelling minister, evangelist, lecturer, and writer in Pennsylvania and New York State, including among the Albany Praying Band of Christianized Indians. In 1883, the Wyoming Conference sent him as a missionary to the Dakota Territory where he worked in Alexandria, Vermillion, Aberdeen and, in 1892, as a teacher in the Sisseton Indian Boarding School. Later, the Shellands moved to northern Minnesota where Rev. Shelland worked under the auspices of the Congregational Church. In 1900, three years after Annie's death, James Shelland married her close friend from school days, Julia Ellen Bulkley.

Julia Ellen Bulkley was born April 25, 1848 in Danbury, Connecticut to farmers Turney and Olive Bulkley. Educated at Fort Edward Institute in Fort Edward, New York, she rose through the ranks in the Plainfield, New Jersey school system from high school classroom teacher in 1869 to superintendent of schools. Bulkley joined the faculty of the University of Chicago in 1892, and almost immediately took leave to work toward a Ph.D. at the University of Zurich. After earning her doctorate in 1895, she served the University of Chicago as Associate Professor of Pedagogy and Dean of Women until her marriage to James Shelland in 1900. In 1898, Bulkley was cited in Harper's Bazaar as one of America's "leading feminine educators." After their marriage Julia and James Shelland travelled extensively in Europe and the Middle East, visiting schools in other countries. Julia Bulkley died on January 31, 1935, followed by James Shelland on September 14 of the same year.

Two of James and Annie's children survived to adulthood: John, born in 1872, and Annie, born in 1878. Annie (Shelland) Williams was a teacher, writer, and superintendent of rural schools in Minnesota. She was also chairman of the Parks and Highway Commission of the General Federation of Women's Clubs. She died on April 4, 1964.