Eugenia Paschall was the daughter of Martha Eliza Stevens Edgar Paschall (widow of General John Edgar) and Nathaniel Paschall. Her father, formerly of Knoxville, Tennessee, was editor, proprietor, and political columnist for The Missouri Republican. She inherited a c. 1823 portrait of her mother by and unknown American painter, probably commissioned on the occasion of Martha Stevens' marriage to her first husband, Gen. Edgar. Eugenia later married Walter Carr and had a daughter who they named Martha Eliza, after Eugenia's mother. The portrait passed to Martha Carr (later Mrs. John Young), who carried it from St. Louis to Geneseo, New York, and in turn passed the picture (now in the NGA) to her daughters, Mary Paschall Young Doty and Katharine Campbell Young Keck.