Hortense was born in Denton County, Texas near Lewisville, the daughter of Dr. John Wesley Boatner, M.D. born in Tippah County, Mississippi and Sardinia M. Boatner born in Mississippi according to the 1880 Tarrant County Census. It is likely that her parents were second or third cousins. Hortense's mother's parents were born in South Carolina according to the census record. Hortense's California death certificate contradicts this by stating that her mother was born in Texas. However, this information was provided by the Funeral Home Directors in Los Angles, CA who may have had little documentation since there apparently was no next of kin except for a younger half nephew who lived in the area. She lost her mother at a young age in 1889 and her father in 1903. It is unknown who raised her after her mother passed away but her father did remarry for a brief period. She moved to California as a young woman around 1913 after working in Dallas, Texas for a while, where she reminded all her life. She moved first to the San Francisco area, then to the Hollywood area. She worked as a Bookkeeper, and PBX operator at the Roosevelt Hotel in Hollywood, and lived near the center of Hollywood until her death. Her older sister, Cecil Boatner Ragland Woods Jones, lived in Lubbock Texas until her death in 1959 and is buried in Lubbock with her third husband, and an older brother, Peter B. Boatner, who like Hortense never married, retired as a newspaper printer in Dallas, Texas and moved to the Colorado Springs, CO Union retirement home where he resided until his death in 1960. He is buried in that city. Hortense who never married, continued to work as a telephone operator in the Roosevelt Hotel until her death.