Born: March 17, 1821, Kingsville, Ohio.
Died: November 6, 1895, Winchester, Tennessee.
Buried: Winchester City Cemetery, Winchester, Tennessee.
Adelia was the daughter of physician Daniel M. Spencer and Marian T. Cook, and wife of Zuinglius Calvin Graves, president of the Kingsville Academy (where she taught drawing and French), later founder and for 40 years president of Mary Sharp College, Winchester, Tennessee.
Adelia showed her gift for poetry very young, writing verses as early as age nine.
She served at Mary Sharp College first as a professor of Latin and Belles-Lettres, then as Matron and Professor of Rhetoric. She contributed poems and stories to various periodicals, and for a number of years edited the Children’s Book.