Elizabeth was recorded on the 1870 and 1880 federal census in Page County, Iowa with her parents, John and Ruth McCutchen.

She first married Thomas C. Shelby in Page County in 1887, and with him had seven known children, only four of whom appear with both their parents on a census: daughters Mary E. and Orpha G., and sons Jerry A. and Henry, were recorded on the 1895 Iowa state census in Montgomery County. Mary was born in Nebraska, and Henry in Missouri, the other two in Iowa.

Her husband died at Clarinda in 1899, and Elizabeth appears there on the 1900 federal census enumerated as "Lizzie" Selby. She states she was then the mother of three children, all of whom were living. They were enumerated as J. T. (Joseph), Bessie Fern, and "T. D.," (Lester Dean). It is the last time she appears on a census with any of her children by Thomas Selby.

We know from the 1895 census that Elizabeth then had four children, and three more (Joseph, Bess & Lester) were born afterwards. Iowa birth records have only been found to match Bess and Jerry, no birth records from Missouri or Nebraska were located.

The death of Thomas Selby left Elizabeth with six young children and a seventh on the way. They lived in the city of Clarinda, and there was no way for her to provide for her children without farmland. She appears to have made the heart-breaking decision to surrender her older children to an orphanage and/or place them with families who could care for them in exchange for them working in the household.

Elizabeth's Selby children named in the attached death notice for MARION FIGGINS are underlined in red. As of the 1910 census, Elizabeth stated she was then the mother of eight children, seven of whom were still living, so the head count matches exactly.

Orpha could not be located anywhere, and must be her child who died before 1910. Ethel was at Weeping Water, IA in 1900; she could not be found in Oakland in 1926. Jerry joined the Army and was stationed at Ochtendung, Germany in 1920; in 1942 he was at Casper, Wyoming and likely died there, but nothing more could be found about him. I believe Joseph T. may be the Joseph Leonard Selby who died at Sheridan, Wyoming in 1946, (although he claimed to have been born at Centerville in Appanoose County). Henry T. Shelby appears on the 1900 census in the household of his grandfather, John McCutchen, in Montgomery County, Iowa. Lester and Bessie "Selbe" appear on the 1910 census at Rooks County, Kansas, listed as foster children in the household of Fredric and Elizabeth Turner.

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Elizabeth next became the second wife of William H. Figgins. They were married 01 Apr 1907 at Corning, Iowa.

She and William had one known child, Merion E. Figgins, who appears with them on the federal and state census records for Iowa from 1910 through 1925.

Elizabeth lost her son Merion to Typhoid in 1926, and husband William in the spring of 1930. She was recorded on the 1930 and 1940 census at her residence on Fifth Street in Villasca as a widow.

Elizabeth was still living at her home on Fifth Street when she died, following a short illness, in 1947. As was customary at the time, she was buried under the surname of her first husband, Tom Selby.