Joseph and Lena Kornberg emigrated to New York from Austrian Galicia (now part of Poland) in 1900 before they were married. Joseph father had changed the family name from Queller (also spelled Kweller) to avoid the draft by taking on the identity of someone who had already completed military service. Joseph Kornberg married Lena Katz in 1904. He worked as a sewing machine operator in the sweat shops of the Lower East side of New York for almost 30 years, and when his health failed, opened a small hardware store in Brooklyn.

Lena Kornberg died of gas gangrene from a spore infection after a routine gall bladder operation in 1939.