Ethelyn LeGrand Jones was born in New Store, Virginia in 1877 to Louis Dibrell and Louisa Flippen Jones. From 1894 to 1896, she attended then-State Female Normal School. In 1899, Jones married Wiley B. Morris, a farmer in Buckingham County, Virginia. Sometime prior to 1910, Ethelyn Morris moved to Boston, Massachusetts where she was employed as a contributor to, and later editor of, The Modern Priscilla, a magazine devoted to women's fashion, needlecraft, and housekeeping. During World War I, she was employed by the U.S. Surgeon General's Office, and was stationed at Walter Reed Hospital where she taught arts and crafts to recovering soldiers. In 1921, Morris married George Guppy, an architect, and the couple subsequently moved to Los Angeles, California. Ethelyn J. Guppy passed away on September 1, 1929 and is buried in Alhambra, California.