When Clyde Eugene Griffis was born on 17 February 1867, in Pacific Junction, Mills, Iowa, United States, his father, Hezekiah King Griffis III, was 31 and his mother, Sarah Maria Sawyer, was 27. He married Bertha Lillian Douglass on 12 January 1896, in Edgemont, Fall River, South Dakota, United States. They were the parents of at least 1 son and 3 daughters. He lived in Nebraska, United States in 1870 and Dudley, Fall River, South Dakota, United States in 1910. He died on 28 July 1921, in Edgemont, Fall River, South Dakota, United States, at the age of 54, and was buried in Buffalo Gap, Custer, South Dakota, United States.