Cross was born March 13, 1899, to J.T. and M.K. Cross. She died at the age of 18 on October 10, 1917. The cause of her death was not commonly known, leading her grave to become a popular "ghost story" setting and source of legend. Many modern legends pertaining to the unusual epitaph, "Murdered by human wolves", claim that her body was found shredded to pieces, that she was killed by werewolves, or that she was killed by the Ku Klux Klan.