Robert Gaston Elliott came to Lawrence, Kansas from Indiana in 1854. From 1855 sporadically until 1857, Robert Elliott and Josiah Miller operated the Kansas Free State, a newspaper devoted to maintaining Kansas as an area opposed to the introduction of slavery. After 1856, Elliott served in numerous city, county, and state offices. He introduced the bill into the state legislature that placed the University of Kansas in Lawrence.

Robert Elliott married Hattie Anderson on November 13, 1867 in Lawrence. Their union produced four children, one of whose family (Samuel Steele Elliott) is the focus of this collection.

Samuel Elliott was born on June 18, 1870, and lived in the Lawrence, KS area until his death on November 17, 1957. Samuel Elliott was a postman in Lawrence for 46 years (1889-1935), the last five years of which he serviced the University of Kansas campus.

During the war, Samuel Elliott responded to a plea for help from KU officials and came out of retirement to serve in several volunteer capacities: as a custodian at Fraser Hall; as a "houseparent" for wartime employees of Sunflower Army Ammunition Plant quartered at KU; and later for student veterans housed in Spooner-Thayer Museum at KU. Finally, when he tried to retire again in 1948, KU officials asked him to become the warden of Danforth Chapel.

Samuel Elliott married Jeannette Herriott in 1894, and they had six children. Five of their six children graduated from the University of Kansas and their daughter, Maude Herriott Elliott, was an Assistant Professor of Spanish at the University until her retirement in 1968.

Maude Elliott's education and career spanned over 50 years. As a young woman, she taught under frontier conditions in the Sandhills of Finney County, KS; worked in Washington, D.C. during World War I; and taught at schools in Ohio and Oklahoma. In 1929 she was asked to join the faculty of the Spanish Department at KU where she had earned A.B. and M.A. degrees in 1921 and 1924. Between 1943 and 1963 she served as an Assistant to the Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences for Counseling.