Mary Elizabeth "Lizzie" Poole Lamb was born February 26, 1858 in Elizabeth City, Pasquotank county, North Carolina. She was the third of 8 children of which we are aware to Stephen D. Pool and Susan Rebecca Whitehurst. At the time of the 1910 U.S. Census, her mother Susan Rebecca reported giving birth to a total of sixteen children and only 6 were still living.

Mary Elizabeth's known siblings were
- John Franklin Poole (1853-1921)
- Stephen Pool (1854- )
- William K. Pool (1863-1923)
- Nancy Ann Pool Pool Johnson (1865- )
- Charles C. Pool (1876-1936)
- James Albert Poole (1872-1955)
- Henry A. Poole (1875-1935)

She met and married Charles Smith and from that union her eldest child was born in Elizabeth City, NC.

- Emma Smith Brothers (1879-1969)

After the death of Mr. Smith, she met and married Willis S. Lamb on November 6, 1882 in Elizabeth City, NC. From that union she bore 8 more children all in Elizabeth City, NC:

His siblings were:
- Kenneth Raynor Lamb (1880- )
- Mattie J. Lamb Overton (1882-1918)
- Frank Willie Lamb (1885- )
- Mamie Lamb Seldon (1889-1933)
- Stephen Saunders Lamb (1891-1956)
- Chauncey Clinton Lamb (1893-1957)
- Thomas Lamb (1895-1935)
- Cora Lee Lamb (1900- )

After the turn of the century (after 1900), then widowed Mary Elizabeth and her five youngest children relocated to Norfolk, Virginia where she stayed until they were all grown.

By 1920, she accompanied three of her grown children and their young families to New York to live out her days residing in Brooklyn.

Mary Elizabeth passed this life on December 29, 1936 in Manhattan, New York; leaving to cherish her legacy: some surviving siblings, 9 children, many grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and a host of other relatives and friends from New York City, her hometown of Elizabeth City, North Carolina and Norfolk, Virginia.