She had married at sixteen, a dog musher named Jack Blackjack, and had three children with him.

Two died in infancy.

The third, a son named Bennett, developed tuberculosis.

Jack Blackjack abandoned Ada and Bennett on the Seward Peninsula, 40 miles outside Nome.

Ada walked the 40 miles back to the city carrying Bennett when he was too tired to walk.

Destitute and desperate, she placed Bennett in a Nome orphanage — the only way to ensure he would be fed and cared for while she sought employment.

When the Wrangel Island expedition arrived in Nome looking for an Iñupiat seamstress who spoke English, Ada saw it as the wages she needed to get her son out of the orphanage and into medical treatment.