Emma was the second of 11 children born to Jacob and Louisa Marie (Siegfeld) Roth. She was born in Allentown and her family moved to Hazleton when she was a young girl. Emma married William T. MacNeal and they were the parents of six children. Two children died before 1900 and likely died in early infancy. The children who survived were: Raymond, who died at age 20, Jane "Jennie" MacNeal Hicks, Walter Ervin MacNeal who was a dentist in Nanticoke, Pa, and Charles Stuart MacNeal who was a teacher in the American University in Beirut (which at that time was located in Syria.)
Hazleton Trinity Lutheran Church records report that a little over a year after her husband died of Brights Disease, Emma took her own life. Emma and her husband and their son Raymond are all buried in Vine Street