When Zilla Margaret Mae Chance was born in April 1879, in Adel, Dallas, Iowa, United States, her father, Tillman Howard Chance, was 24 and her mother, Harriett Roxanna Garoutte, was 22. She married Welburn Howell Secrest on 10 October 1914, in Weber, Utah, United States. She lived in Rosita, Custer, Colorado, United States in 1880. She died on 8 June 1967, in Florida, United States, at the age of 88.