Elisabeth Walton Robert (née McMillan) was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the youngest daughter of clergyman John Quincy McMillan and Elisabeth Catherine Walton. She had 2 older siblings: Lydia Jeanette and Daniel Walton. Elisabeth married George Alexander Madill, a distinguished Irish jurist 20 years her senior, on February 13, 1895. Previously, George had married his first wife, Julia Peck, with whom he had 2 children: George and Charles.
Elisabeth and her husband George had a daughter named Georgette Alexandra Madill and lived together in St. Louis. However, George Madill died in 1901 and Elisabeth remarried on January 3, 1904 to Edward Scott Robert, a lawyer who had been a partner and friend of her first husband. Both continued to live in St. Louis until she became a widow once more after he died on December 13, 1911.
Elisabeth and her daughter, Georgette Alexandra Madill, hoping to ease their sorrows, decided to go on vacation to Europe. For their return to America, they boarded the Titanic in First Class, at Southampton, bound for Missouri. She stayed in cabin B-3.
RMS Queen Mary
Also traveling with them were their maid, Emilie Kreuchen, and Elisabeth's niece and Georgette's cousin, Elisabeth Walton Allen.
On the night of the sinking (April 14-15, 1912), Georgette, her mother, her maid, and her cousin were rescued in lifeboat 2.
Mauretania II
After the Titanic disaster, Elisabeth never remarried and continued to travel in Japan and China, among other destinations. Her 1917 passport describes her as a woman with light brown and gray hair, hazel eyes, with a medium forehead, and a fair complexion. In 1939, she was a passenger on the Queen Mary and in October 1953, Elisabeth and her daughter Georgette were passengers on board the second Mauretania.
In 1930, Elisabeth was living with her long-term housekeeper, Laura Belle Harris in Missouri. Elisabeth was heavily involved in charity projects, particularly those supporting young people and children. In addition, she was one of the organizers of the YWCA (Young Women's Christian Association) in 1892 and established the Kindergarten for minors in St. Louis. Later, he helped establish a school for African-American children. Elisabeth spent her last days living in Clarkesville, Missouri, where she owned a farm. Finally, he died on January 15, 1956 at age 87 at the San Luis Jewish Hospital after a heart attack.
She and her family are buried in the Bellefontaine Cemetery in St. Louis. Elisabeth, always especially kind and attentive to her family's servants, ensured that when 3 of her African-American servants, Katherine Harris, Laura Belle Harris and Viola Harris Douglas, died, they were buried with the rest of the Madill family in Bellefontaine.