When Jesse Cleon Adams was born on 5 May 1919, in Trumann, Poinsett, Arkansas, United States, his father, Washington Jesse Adams, was 28 and his mother, Lillie Mae Cooper, was 26. He married Lagene Eloise Dacus on 19 January 1946, in Shelby, Tennessee, United States. They were the parents of at least 1 daughter. He lived in St. Michael and St. Philip Township, Charleston, South Carolina, United States in 1930. He died on 20 December 1991, in Memphis, Shelby, Tennessee, United States, at the age of 72, and was buried in Memphis, Shelby, Tennessee, United States.