Etta was born in Bartow County, Georgia, and grew up in Atlanta. She was the daughter of Lewis M. and Mary C. Gillam, originally from South Carolina. She married James Perry, a railroad office clerk about 1890 and lived in St. Louis, Missourri. After she was widowed, Etta returned to Atlanta to live with her widowed sister, Juliette Harris, and her brother, William, at 658 Moreland Avenue on the corner of Blue Ridge, during the period of these records.