Edna was the third daughter born to Elmer and Lillian Smith in Baltimore. She had a third grade education. At age 18 she married John William Holtgrefe. They lived in a rented home and had four children. By 1918 they were living with her parents in Baltimore and John was missing three fingers on his right hand according to his draft records. John worked on an elevator and then as a foreman. When John died in 1926 Edna and the children continued to live with her parents until Edna married George William Uhl in Washington, DC in 1931.
The family increased with the addition of three Uhl step-children, Dorothy, Andrew and Margaret. George worked as a street car conductor and as a scaleman at a steel company. They owned their home at 5221 Eastern Avenue, Baltimore.
Edna died in 1956 at the age of 66 and is buried in Louden Park Cemetery (Rose Hill Section, #748) with her parents and her first husband, John.