Martha Rhodes Calhoun was born July 24, 1831 and died in 1873.

Martha Rhodes Calhoun was the mother of Arsula Calhoun Amos and grandmother of Bessie Lura Amos. She was born in Williamson, Tennessee; she married William C. Calhoun on October 17, 1850 in Marshall, Tennessee. He was 24 and she was 19 years old. William and Martha had eight children, the youngest of whom was Arsula (sometimes spelled Ursula) Calhoun Amos, who married William Wilburn Amos.

Martha and William moved to Illinois after their second child was born in the mid 1850s; the lived in the southern corner of the state in-between the Mississippi and Ohio rivers.

In the 1870 federal census, William was 44 and Martha was 38. Both were listed as illiterate, likewise all of their children, of which Elizabeth was the oldest, at 18, born in Tennessee. The oldest boy was Thomas, age 17, also born in Tennessee, already a farmer. The rest of their children were born in Illinois: Amanda was 14, James was 9, Susan was 7, Samuel was 4, and Robert was 2. Martha’s mother, the widowed Elizabeth Rhodes, age 69, also lived with the family; she was listed as an illiterate farmer. William farmed, and Martha kept house. The value of their real estate was $800, and the value of their personal estate was $600. In 1870, the Calhoun family lived in Township 11, Range 21, Johnson Co., Illinois; the post office is at Goreville (southern corner of Illinois north of Ohio River and east of the Mississippi River).

William and Martha had two more children, Alphus, in 1871, and Arsula, in 1873. Martha apparently died in childbirth or soon after. She was 42 years old.

William soon removed his family to Arkansas and remarried.