Joanna Ellen Wood was born on December 28, 1867, in Lesmahagow, Scotland. Her family came to Irving, New York, in 1869, moving to Ontario soon thereafter. As of 1913, she lived in Queenston, Ontario, which, along with Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, was her primary Canadian residence. Wood also lived in France and various American cities. In an 1896 profile for the Buffalo Courier-Express, Honora S. Howard noted that "[l]ack of nationality in her work and in other personal characteristics inclines us to place [her] among the cosmopolites".
