Eleanor spent several years of her childhood, from age 9 to 13, living with a group of Native Americans from the Seneca tribe. (John Kinzie's first wife had a similar experience.)
She married her first husband Capt Daniel McKillip at age 14, and they had one daughter, She became a widow in 1794 when her husband was killed supporting Indians fighting Gen Anthony Wayne in the Ohio Territory. She met Kinzie in Detroit, and they were married in 1798 There their son was born, then the family moved to Chicago to take over a trading post that Jean LaLime had taken over from John Baptiste DuSable. Three more children were born. In 1810 she helped hide her husband, who had killed LaLime in a disute over trading.
In 1812, trouble between Fort Dearborn and area natives led to an order to evacuate, She was kept safe by said natives along with her husband and their children, during the Fort Dearborn Massacre.
In 1816 rhe Kinzies returned to Chicago. From then on they lived a comfortbable and less eventful life.