Elizabeth Margaret is the daughter of Charles W. (Karl Wilhelm) Augenstein and Mary A. (Maria Dewald) Dewalt. They lived in Castle Shannon in the Pittsburgh, Allegheny County, Pennsylvania area. She was called Lissie when she was little and later just Liss.

Elizabeth met Clyde Alonzo Cable at a dance hall in the Pittsburgh area. They married on September 21, 1914, in Wellsburg, Brooke County, West Virginia. They had one daughter, Helen May born in 1915.

When Clyde volunteered for World War I, he and Elizabeth became estranged. She left the area and divorced Clyde in Detroit, Wayne County, Michigan, seven years exactly after their marriage. She left her daughter behind to be raised by Helen's paternal grandaunt, Mary Veronica "Daisy" Taylor and her husband Charles Nelson Bishop in West End, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Elizabeth remarried Charles Franklin Messner on 15 July 1922, Rochester, Monroe County, New York. After that she called herself Betty. Elizabeth and Charles never had children together. They lived most of their married life in Rochester and later in Florida. She never returned to visit her daughter or grandchildren. She only kept in touch by mail.

Elizabeth was cremated and it is unknown where her remains are. They were supposed to be sent to Mount Hope Cemetery where her shared headstone is with her husband. It was purchased by Elizabeth and she had her name and birth date inscribed at the time of Charles' death on January 1, 1962. Her granddughter, Beverly, had the headstone completed in the 1990s by having the death year inscribed, even though she discovered her cremains were not there.

Elizabeth has three grandchildren: Beverly, Sally, and Clayton Dwight Osman (1944-2010). She currently (as of April 2011) has 4 great-grandchildren and 3 great-great-grandchildren.

On the Social Security Death Index she is Elizabeth Moessner. Moessner is the original surname of her husband.