| 1781 | Abraham Payne, Kezia’s father, born in Thetford, Norfolk, England. |
| (unknown) | | Abraham Payne marries “Hanna” in England. Kezia’s half-siblings Abraham and Catherine are born. | | Family moves to Funchal, Madeira, Portugal. Abraham enters the wine business. |
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| 1824 | Hanna dies in childbirth on Madeira. The daughter born, Hepziah, dies as an infant. |
| 1825 | May 14: Abraham Payne marries Kezia’s mother, a widow named Catherine Armstrong Cartwright, a resident of Funchal, native of England. |
| 1828 | July 23: Kezia born in Funchal, Madeira. |
| (unknown) | Kezia’s siblings Frances, Sarah, and Benjamin are born. |
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1833
| | September 26: Catherine Armstrong Cartwright Payne dies. | | November 23: Kezia’s brother Abraham dies. |
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| 1835 | | September: Kezia, her siblings, and their governess, Hannah Bainton (an Englishwoman) leave Madiera for America on the ship Chili. Abraham stays behind to settle his business affairs. | | Adolph DePelchin, Kezia’s future husband, is born in Ostend, Belgium. |
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| 1836 | December 12: Kezia and her family arrive in New York. |
| 1837 | January: Kezia and family arrive in Galveston, Texas. |
| 1839 | | Spring: Abraham Payne arrives in Galveston, and marries Hannah Bainton. | | September: A yellow fever epidemic strikes Galveston, soon spreading to Houston, Texas. One-fourth of the population of Galveston dies, as does 240 of Houston’s 2,000 inhabitants. | | Kezia and her family contract yellow fever. Kezia survives, but her brother Benjamin and sister Catherine die. |
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| 1840 | | June 11: Kezia’s father, Abraham Payne dies in Galveston of complications from yellow fever. | | March 12: Kezia’s sister Sarah returns to Funchal to marry her cousin John Payne, who came to Funchal to take over Abraham Payne’s wine business. |
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| 1841 | Late summer: Kezia arrives in Houston accompanied by her widowed step-mother. |
| 1850 | Spring: Kezia and her stepmother move to Bastrop, Texas to operate a school. They return to Houston a year later. |
| 1853 | During a yellow fever epidemic in New Orleans, the Howard Relief Association is organized in that city. |
| 1860 | January 21: Kezia’s sister Frances dies on Madiera. |
| 1862 | August 23: Kezia marries Belgian itinerant musician Adolph DePelchin. No children of the marriage. They part soon after due to his financial recklessness, though they never divorce. |
| (unknown) | During the Civil War, Kezia joins a nursing corps in Houston. |
| 1867 | January 15: Early plans for Bayland Orphan’s Home are begun. |
| 1870 | November 9: Kezia’s step-mother, Hannah Bainton Payne dies. |
| 1877 | October 2: The Houston public school system is established. Kezia teaches fourth and fifth grades. |
| 1878 | | August 29: Kezia leaves Houston to serve as a nurse in the yellow fever epidemics in Memphis and Granada, Tennessee, working in Memphis alongside other healthworkers of the Howard Relief Association. | | October 14: Kezia leaves Memphis to work as a nurse in the epidemic in Senatobia, Mississippi. Not long afterward, the epidemic ends. | | November 23: Kezia returns to Memphis, leaving for Houston, Texas with a stop in Sewanee, Tennessee. |
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| 1879 | April: Kezia teaches private school in her home in Houston. |
| 1880 | Kezia’s sister Sarah’s husband John dies, on Madeira, and Sarah becomes paralyzed. |
| 1881 | | July: Kezia leaves for Madeira to care for her sister Sarah, stopping on the way to visit friends and former patients in New Orleans, New York, Washington, DC, Philadelphia, and New Jersey, and then stops in England and Scotland to visit her niece Mary Payne, and nephews David and George. | | August 4: Kezia lands at Madeira. |
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| 1882 | May 21: Kezia’s sister Sarah dies in Funchal, Madeira. |
| 1883 | | January: Kezia arrives back in Houston | | December: Kezia becomes head nurse at Stuart and Boyles Infirmary, formerly Charity Hospital, which cares for the indigent ill. |
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| 1887 | | Early March: Kezia leaves the Infirmary. | | Bayland Orphan’s Home for Boys moves from Tabbs Bay to Houston. |
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| 1888 | July 1: Kezia becomes the first woman matron of Bayland Orphans’ Home. |
| 1891 | March 27: Kezia’s husband Adolph de Pelchin dies in New Orleans. |
| 1892 | | Spring: Three homeless young children are brought to Kezia, who cares for them in a friend’s home. | | May 2: Kezia establishes Faith Home in a rented house in the 2500 block of Washington Avenue in Houston. |
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| 1893 | | January 13: Kezia Payne De Pelchin dies in Houston and is buried in the Episcopal Cemetery. | | January 20: One hundred Houston women organize the DePelchin Faith Home to honor DePelchin after her death. |
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