When Daphne Doreen Boyes was born on 20 November 1909, in Tasman, Nelson, New Zealand, her father, Frank George Boyes, was 26 and her mother, Ellen Ada Mary Carter, was 30. She married James William Arthur Johnson in 1931, in New Zealand. She died on 19 September 1993, in Katikati, Western Bay of Plenty, Bay of Plenty, New Zealand, at the age of 83.