Phoebe was the daughter of John and Mary Clay of Elsfield, Oxfordshire. She was born February 10, 1824 and baptised two days later.

Phoebe married James Parker Badger on April 14, 1844 in the Beckley Assumption of the Blessed Mary Church. James and Phoebe had a son and a daughter when they immigrated to Canada between 1847 and 1852. In Canada they had three more boys, and three more girls for a total of eight children. In 1861 they lived in Welland County, then they settled to farming in the Parry Sound area prior to the 1871 census.
James died on February 24, 1892 at 72 years of age in Parry Sound, Ontario. Phoebe died almost six years later on December 30, 1897 at the age of 73 from congestion of the lungs.