Caroline was nineteen when in 1876 she married Adelbert Cooley, her childhood sweetheart who lived on a nearby farm. Caroline and Adelbert bought their own farm in Batavia Township and there they raised four daughters, Harriet Bernice, Florence Rena, Alma Agnes and Helen Louise, plus a son, Ralph Egbert, who died of spinal meningitis in 1903, at the age of three.

The Cooley daughters all became schoolteachers, but only one of them has descendants living today. Harriet Bernice married Lewis Osborn. Their children were Dorothy, Harriett, Marian and Lewis. Marian married Raymond Vogel. Their daughter Grace married Stanley Hornsby, now the parents of two daughters, Melissa and Jessica.