Farris endured the 1968 assassination of brother Martin, the 1969 accidental drowning of brother A. D., and the 1974 assassination of her mother. Farris did not return to Memphis, Tennessee, since traveling there after her brother's assassination to retrieve his body. In recent years, she attended the funerals of sister-in-law, Coretta Scott King (died January 30, 2006) and niece Yolanda King (died May 15, 2007). In an interview with CNN, she said she would not attend an April 2008 event marking the 40th anniversary of her brother's assassination, because the painful memories of her last visit to Memphis still haunted her. Her husband, Isaac Newton Farris Sr., died on December 30, 2017, at the age of 83.