Reily Gibson Adams, 1911-1982, was a corporation official of Indianapolis, Indiana. His first wife, Mary Stewart Haines, 1912-1975, was a first cousin twice removed of Booth Tarkington, as her grandmother, Mary Tarkington Stewart Carey, 1859-1938, was Tarkington's first cousin. Haines and Tarkington were both descended from Joseph Tarkington, 1800-1891, and his wife, Maria Slauson, 1806-1889.

(Newton) Booth Tarkington, 1869-1946, was an American novelist. He was born to Elizabeth Booth and John Stevenson Tarkington on 29 July 1869. He grew up in Indianapolis, Indiana, where he attended Shortridge High School, but he moved to New Hampshire to finish high school at Phillips Exeter Academy. He then studied at Purdue University and Princeton University, during which time his interest in writing and drama developed significantly. He never finished his degree, but he was heavily involved in Princeton's dramatic association and was later awarded honorary degrees in 1899 and 1918. His first novel, A Gentleman from Indiana, was published in 1899 after his sister, Hauté, presented the manuscript to the publisher. By 1902, Tarkington had published two novels, Monsieur Beaucaire (1900) and The Two Vanrevels (1902), among other works, and had been elected to the Indiana House of Representatives.

In 1902, Tarkington married Louisa Fletcher. The couple moved between Indianapolis, New York, Rome, and Paris before divorcing in 1911. In 1912, Booth married Susan Robinson, and the two lived between Indianapolis and Kennebunckport, Maine, as a doctor had suggested Tarkington spend time in the New England town after a bout with typhoid fever in 1903. Though Tarkington began losing his eyesight in the 1920s, he published numerous works until his death in 1946 at the age of 76. Some of his most popular later works include Penrod (1914), Seventeen (1917), and Mary's Neck (1932), among several more novels.