Frances Ann Polk (née Devereux) was born in North Carolina in 1807. She amassed a large amount of inherited wealth from her family's plantation and in 1830 she married Leonidas Polk, a cousin of President James Polk. She was part of the Raleigh social scene along with the Cotten family. She was widowed after her husband died in the Civil War and lived out the rest of her life in New Orleans, Louisiana, where she died on April 17, 1875.