The former Eliza Hathaway, was born in Black brook, Essex County, N.Y., on July 25, 1834. She was married at Peru, N.Y., April 24, 1852, to Andrew Jackson Leggett. After Mr. Leggett's death she moved to Hartford, Wis., and married for a second time, July 17, 1886, to James D. Wilson, of Neosho.  He died Dec. 15, 1898.

In 1900 she moved to Thorp, Clark Co., Wisconsin, where three of her seven children were living.

Eliza worked as a midwife around SE Wisconsin where she rode stagecoaches to get where she was needed. She would help women in childbirth, tend the sick and dying and lay out the dead. She taught her daughter Blanche (Leggett) Welch the same skills.