Ayer was born Elizabeth Taylor in Heath, Massachusetts in 1803. Unmarried at twenty-five, she traveled to Mackinac Island to work at an Indian boarding school. She had been working there several year when she met Frederick Ayer.[1]
Frederick was soon sent to Ojibwe trading posts as a missionary, setting up a school in Lyman Warren's home in La Pointe. Meanwhile, Elizabeth studied the Ojibwe language. Frederick published a small book on the Ojibwe language, and when he returned to Mackinac, he and Elizabeth married.[1][2]
Elizabeth and Frederick opened a mission station on the St. Croix River, near Yellow Lake from 1833 to 1835. Then, an Ojibwe leader invited the missionaries to Pokegama Lake to start a new mission there.[3][4] The site became home to a treaty-funded blacksmith and farmer working with the Ojibwe. Elizabeth had two sons at the mission post: Lyman and Frederick Jr.[1]
In spring 1841, the post was attacked by Dakota.[2] The Ayer family traveled to Oberlin College, where Frederick was ordained and Elizabeth studied. By late 1843, Elizabeth and Frederick returned to missionary work at the Red Lake mission.[3] However, Frederick soon became ill.[1]
The Ayers retired from the missionary organization and settled in Belle Prairie in the new Minnesota Territory.[5] They began a seminary for Ojibwe youth, and Elizabeth convinced teachers she knew from New England and Illinois to relocate. The school served Ojibwe, mixed-race, and some white children. It was acquired by the Methodist Conference in 1856, but Elizabeth remained a teacher in Morrison County. She also taught at Crow Wing.[1]
Elizabeth's son Frederick died in 1850, and the family adopted at least one Ojibwe orphan.[1]
Her son Lyman, along with other relatives like Henry Ayer,[6] served in the Civil War, advocating for Frederick and Elizabeth to travel to Atlanta, Georgia to provide education to freedmen. They did so, working in American Missionary Association schools.[1]
Following her husbands death, Elizabeth returned to Belle Prairie. She continued to teach, and died in 1898.[1]