Richard Ishmael Lee was born September 27, 1827, in Blount, County, Tennessee, the second oldest son and third child of Samuel and Mary Hackney Lee. The Lee and Hackney families, members of the Quaker community in Blount County, Tennessee now known as Friendsville, settled in that area around 1790-1800. Richard Ishmael Lee was named after his father's brother, Ishmael Lee, a man who remained a Quaker his entire life. Samuel Lee and his brother Ishmael were sons of Nathan Lee and Hannah Dixon. Samuel and Mary Lee migrated to southwest Missouri about 1835 and settled first in Polk County where they lived in 1840. In 1843 they moved to Greene County. Soon after their father died in 1853, several of Richard's siblings migrated to California. His mother and the three youngest sisters made their home with him in the Ebenezer community in Greene County, until the sisters were married. On September 27, 1860, Richard Ishmael Lee married Joanna Catherine "Cassie" Fulbright, daughter of Lawson and Elizabeth Fulbright, in Greene County. They were parents of one daughter, Effie Catherine Lee, who was born June 24, 1870, and on that day, Cassie Fulbright Lee died. Richard married Martha Diane Gurley, the widow of Arthur Y Kirkpatrick, on January 11, 1874, in Greene County. Martha Diane Gurley was the daughter of Aaron Gurley and Martha Mullins and the sister of Thomas Marion Gurley (1841-1911). There were no children born to Richard Ishmael and Martha Diane Lee. Richard Ishmael Lee was known to some of his nieces and nephews as "Uncle Dick", but in most of the public records he is identified by his second name, Ishmael. He was a farmer. Records indicate that he bought and sold property in Greene County on multiple occasions. In November 1857 he was recorded as a secretary to Elisha Headlee, the Public Administrator of Greene County. In 1876 he is listed as an "Early Settler of Greene County" in a record taken from An Illustrated Historical Atlas Map of Greene Co., Mo. At that time his residence was listed in Township 30, range 22. In a plat of Greene County in 1904, he is listed in Township 29, Range 23, Section 10. He died at his home near Elwood in Greene County on January 23, 1910. He was buried in Clear Creek Cemetery beside Martha, his second wife. His tombstone bears a Masonic emblem.

Jim L. Wilson