When Emma Kate Thompson was born on 23 November 1864, in Dayton, Montgomery, Ohio, United States, her father, Thomas Wallace Thompson, was 26 and her mother, Emily Ann Crickett, was 26. She married Curtis Kinsey Gittings on 3 August 1881, in La Harpe, Hancock, Illinois, United States. They were the parents of at least 4 sons and 2 daughters. She lived in Wilber, Saline, Nebraska, United States in 1885 and Superior, Nuckolls, Nebraska Territory, United States in 1930. She died on 19 February 1945, in Superior, Nuckolls, Nebraska, United States, at the age of 80, and was buried in Superior, Nuckolls, Nebraska, United States.