Background
Forbes was a member of the Massachusetts Forbes family, being the daughter of Ralph Emerson Forbes and Elise Cabot. She was a great-granddaughter of Ralph Waldo Emerson and a niece of William Cameron Forbes (Governor-General of the Philippines 1908 - 1913).
Forbes married architect Lyman Paine in the mid-1920s. They moved together from Boston to New York, where Forbes" friend Mary Bancroft described them as hosting "wonderful parties in their West Side apartment".
Forbes and Paine divorced in the 1930s after having two children, Cameron Paine and Michael Paine.
A second marriage, in the early 1940s to Doctor Giles Thomas, was cut short by the latter"s death. Forbes married Arthur M. Young in 1948.