Lela Pearl Sailor Foresman, daughter of Clement Laird and Mary Belle Sailor, was born on March 26, 1897 in Thomasville, Indian Territory. Foresman for the first nine years of her life moved from Thomasville, to Bon Ami, Louisiana, to Sour Lake, Texas, to Allentown, Louisiana, then to Bigelow, Perry County, Arkansas. In 1914, Foresman graduated Bigelow High School and enrolled at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville in 1915 where she majored in Journalism with a minor in German. After graduating college in 1918, Foresman moved back to her family’s home in Bigelow and worked with her father at the Bigelow State Bank and at the weekly newspaper, The Citizen Press. While in Bigelow, Foresman met Frank Clemons Foresman and later married him June 30, 1920.

In October 1944, following years of instable work, the Foresman family moved to Greenville, Mississippi. There, Frank worked for Alexander Lumber Company and Lela secured a position within the office of a public accountant. After the death of her husband in 1955, Foresman set up her own independent accounting business. In 1958, Foresman began seeking her Certified Public Accountant certificate and became Greenville’s first woman CPA in 1960 at the age of 63. Foresman died on February 24, 1989, at the age of 92.