Frederick Roland Kenyon was born in Connecticut on 17 March 1871.

He was the son of an American father from Rhode Island, Jeremiah Austin Kenyon (1925-1886) and a London-born mother, Emma Jerring (1836-1923) who had married on 11 July 1862. He had one known sibling, his brother Jeremiah Austin (1868-1914).

The 1880 census shows Fred and his family living in Southington, Hartford, Connecticut and his father was described as an undertaker and in the furniture trade and was also a Civil War veteran. Jeremiah Kenyon later died on 30 September 1886.

Fred was married in Washington, DC on 11 April 1904 to Marion Estelle Stauffer (b. 1871), a native of Iowa, but the couple would remain childless. The 1910 census shows the couple living with Fred's widowed mother and unmarried brother in Southington. They resided in Pittsburgh where Mr Kenyon was a steel merchant and had a holiday home in Noank, Connecticut. He reportedly amassed a fortune in the iron business and was long associated with Charles G. Stevens, president of the steel company of that name, with offices at South Jefferson Street. The two men, with John Kirkpatrick, organized the West Leechburg Steel Company.

In early 1912 the Kenyons had been on vacation in Paris and Panama and were returning to their home aboard Titanic which they boarded at Southampton on 10 April 1912 as first class passengers (ticket number 17464 which cost £51, 17s, 3d). Among their party aboard were Margaret Swift and Dr Alice Leader.

On the night of the sinking Dr Leader related talking to Fred shortly before the crash and Fred later went to his stateroom and was preparing to retire for the night with his wife when the impact occurred. They redressed and went out on deck where Mrs Kenyon escaped in lifeboat 8. She had asked her husband to follow her but he refused to do so, preferring to remain until all women and children were accounted for. He was lost in the disaster and his body, if recovered, was never identified.

Fred's mother later suffered the loss of her elder son Jeremiah, a Civil War veteran, on 23 November 1914. She continued to live in Southington and died on 29 March 1923. She was buried in Quinnipac Cemetery in Southington. Fred is commemorated on the family grave.

Fred's widow Marion later moved to Santa Monica, California and remarried his friend Owen Albert Williams. She died in 1958.