Saphyre was born in Des Moines, Iowa on November 7, 1962 and lived there with her mother and older half brother Mark until age 4. Her father was not involved in her life.

In 1966, wanting a better life for her family, Patricia moved them to Ames, IA where they lived until she died in 1973. She was chronically ill with divertiticulitis, but managed to work until about 1971.

In February of 1973, when her health declined to the point of either being hospitalized for a colostomy or dying, Patricia was hospitalized in University of Iowa's hospital where she received a number of different treatments, including the colostomy. Unfortunately, during surgery was given the wrong blood type and Patricia died in March of 1973.

Jean was then moved to Hubbard, IA to the home of her step-aunt and husband, Elaine Ardythe (Fichtner) and David Lee Larson, where she lived and was raised until age 18 in 1981. She attended the local public school in Hubbard and was active in drama and French. She also studied dance for much of her childhood.

After graduation she moved to Des Moines, IA to attend Drake University and graduated with a theatre degree in 1985. Shortly after graduation she married Kenneth Bricker and moved to New Orleans, LA for a job that he got.

While in New Orleans (1985-1996), she divorced Ken and married Stephen Michael Schnell, and had three children; Katherine Morgan Bricker (born before the divorce of Ken and marriage of Stephen), Aaron Michael Schnell and Spencer Patrick Schnell. She worked at various clerical/secretarial jobs, the first significant one being at Schon Art Gallery in the French Quarter where she worked when Katherine was born.

She also worked at Metairie Park Country Day school, a prestigious private school. It was during this time she married Stephen and had both Aaron and Spencer. After Aaron was born, she left that job to become a fulltime mother to the three children. When Spencer was approximately 6 months old, she left Stephen and again joined the work force this time as the the Assistant to the VP of Student Affairs at Loyola University, where she was an executive assistant and managed the Office of Student Affairs. During this time Jean decided to change her first name and became Saphyre in 1992.

While at that job she started a long term relationship with Franklin Hasty, and eventually got pregnant with her last child Mark Amon Hasty. At that time they decided to move from New Orleans to Bloomington, IL (where Franklin was born and had immediate family) to escape the crime and bad education in New Orleans. A final time she took a break from the work force and became a fulltime mother until 1998 when she began work in the tech industry with Internation Network Services, a networking consultant firm.

She worked with International Network Services from 1998 through 2000 (which was bought by Lucent in 1999 and then became a part of Avaya). From there she was recruited to Relera, Inc in Denver where she moved the family in 2000. She lived with the family there from 2000 - 2010. In 2003, she divorced Franklin and moved through the tech crash into several jobs as well as returning to school to pursue a second degree in physics. In 2006 she started working at Avaya, Inc as a T3 engineer where she stayed until 2013 when her health declined. While working at Avaya, Saphyre became a member of the motorcycle club, American Biker Knights and in 2006 she learned to ride her own motorcycle. In 2007 she even rode to Sturgis. While in that club, she met John Russell Berry, Jr., and together they rode everywhere. They married in 2009 and moved to the San Francisco Bay area December 31st, 2009 where they lived with her son Mark. In 2013, Mark moved to his dad's because of Saphyre's failing health. Eventually, John and Saphyre moved back to Denver (October, 2015) to escape the high cost of the Bay area and to be by John's parents, where they live currently.