Mary Caroline Ward was the daughter of Elisha Ward, Sr. (1773 – 1838) and Jane Washington Neeland (1786 – after 1850). She married first in about 1837 to Richard H. Gee, who died in 1843. She married in September 1845 to Pinckney Odom (17 Apr 1820 – 4 Dec 1894). Although she and Pinckney lived two miles north of the Farmerville courthouse between about 1868 and the early 1890s, Mary was buried near several of her close relatives in the Alabama – Weldon Cemetery along the Union/Claiborne Parish line, some distance west of Farmerville.