Ethel Pearl Storing was born in Kasson, Minnesota, in January 1877, the second child of Charles Edward and Mary Catharine (Keller) Storing. Storing had an older brother, Chester Charles Storing, born in October 1868.

Storing attended Central High School in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and graduated in 1896. She then attended the Winona State Normal School in Winona, Minnesota. She began her teaching career in Kasson in 1903. After 1904 she taught in Eden Valley, Sherwood and Glenburn in Ward County, North Dakota. In 1908 Storing returned to Minnesota and taught in Rochester. Her last year of teaching was spent in Mohall, Renville County, North Dakota, in 1914. That same year, she returned home to care for her aging parents.

After the deaths of her parents and brother, Storing had difficulty managing her finances. It was not long before she began receiving welfare aid. Late in 1944 she was found by the welfare authorities to be in poor physical condition and was taken to St. Vincent's Nursing Home in Bismarck, North Dakota. Storing died in February 1961 from injuries sustained in a bus accident.