Thomas McKinley Hadley was born on November 22, 1897, in Alamance County, North Carolina. Hadley was a longtime employee of the L. Banks Holt Manufacturing Co. in Graham, North Carolina. During the influenza pandemic of 1918 and 1919, Hadley cared for many of his neighbors down with the flu, at great risk to his own health. In 1920, he provided testimony in the investigation of an attempted lynching in Alamance County. Hadley died in Burlington, North Carolina on November 29, 1959.