Adele Cutts was born to government official James Madison Cutts and Ellen Cutts, nee O'Neale. She was one of the leading belles of Washington society. She met Illinois Senator Stephen A. Douglas, a widower with two sons, in 1856 and they married on November 20, 1856. They had only one child, who died a few months after birth. Douglas died in 1861. She met Captain Robert Williams in 1865 and they were married in January 1866. They had six children adn lived out west at varying army posts.