Obedience was born 28 February 1799, in Rowan County, North Carolina to James & Mary Williams Brown. She married Philip Boss in 1818, in Rowan County, North Carolina, he was born 22 January 1801, in Rowan County, North Carolina, a son of Peter Boss and Mary Garner. His father was the son of Philip Boss and Ann Spidel.
Philip Boss, the husband of Obedience Brown, died in Davidson County, North Carolina about the year 1835. Obedience then moved to Brown County, Illinois to be near her brothers. Philip and Obedience were the parents of 10 or 11 children.

In the 1860 Census there were five of Obedience’s husbands brothers living in Brown County, Illinois, namely: Peter, Andrew, Henry, John and William Boss.

While Obedience was living in Brown County, Illinois she joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. In 1842, she moved to a home near Nauvoo, Illinois in Hancock County.
She was loved by all of her neighbors who knew her. Some of them called her "Aunt Biddie."

During the year of 1844, the harassment of the Mormons by their Christian(?) neighbors became very intense. One neighbor came to warn her that she had better get her family out of the house, as the mob was planning on burning the place. That night Obedience and her little ones took what they could carry and slept down near the swamps, thinking they would be safe there, but the mosquitoes nearly ate them up.

The next morning she found that her home and all of its contents was burned to the ground. Some of the children went back to Brown County, Illinois where five of their uncles were living. Her sons Philip and Henry were still living there in 1860.

Obedience tried to find employment for her other children to keep them from starving. Her 15-year-old daughter, Nancy secured a position working in the household of Col. Levi William, not knowing that he was the leader of the mob that would assassinate the Prophet Joseph Smith and his brother, Hyrum.

Nancy was able to get a message to her Uncle, Capt. James Brown, and he informed her that he would meet her in the woods nearby and wait for her to escape.
The Colonel had taken most of her clothing away from her, but she put a few things in a bundle and threw them out of the window. She then took the empty water bucket to go out after some water. Once outside, she dropped the bucket, picked up her bundle, and ran for the woods as quickly as she could go, all the while fearing that she would be shot.
She found her Uncle James Brown, mounted on his horse, waiting for her, and through him, she made her escape.
This account was written down years later by Nancy’s youngest daughter, Samantha Dalene Rawson Rose.

Obedience moved west with the Saints with the Silas Richards Company, bringing the youngest 5 children of her family with her. During the journey, her daughter, Polly Boss married Joseph L Matthews in Council Bluffs, Iowa in 1848... Later her daughter, Nancy Boss married Daniel Rawson in Salt Lake City in Nov. 1849, after the death of her Mother.
She settled her family, Willis, Nancy, Solomon, & John, in Ogden, Weber County, Utah, near her brother, Capt. James Brown, and her two sisters, Mary (Polly), and Nancy Brown.

She died on October 9, 1849, and was buried in the high "old burial ground" in Ogden, Utah. A number of years later, in 1926, when the Ashton Brickyard was under construction, her bones were exhumed and put on display in the County building until a member of the family, her grandson, recognized the ring on her finger & claimed the bones, then had them buried in the Daniel Berry Rawson lot in the Ogden City Cemetery.
Daniel B. Rawson was the husband of her daughter, Nancy Boss, who escaped from Col. Williams in Illinois. Obedience’s remains were buried in the same grave lot with her infant granddaughter who died in 1857, Helen Obedience Boss, daughter of her son, Willis and Dorothy Hall Boss . Obedience is buried in the second grave north of her daughter, Nancy Boss Rawson, on 7th Avenue, near the road.
Many of Obedience's descendants still live in the Ogden area.