Jay Glover Eldridge was born on November 8, 1875 to William and Augusta Eldridge in Janesville, Wisconsin. He spent his child­hood in various states,such as Mis­sou­ri, Kan­sas, and New York. He attended Yale University, and studied mo­dern lan­guag­es. He graduated in 1896 and was member of Phi Be­ta Kap­pa. Eldridge then spent a year in Ger­ma­ny be­fore ac­cept­ing a po­si­tion as Pro­fess­or of Mo­dern Lan­guag­es at the Un­i­ver­si­ty of Ida­ho in 1901. A couple years lat­er he was ap­point­ed Dean of the Faculty, the first Dean cre­at­ed there.

During the first World War, El­dridge served in France with the Young Men's Chris­tian As­so­ci­a­tion. After the war ended Eldridge re­turned to the un­i­ver­si­ty. In 1923 he helped establish a Phi Be­ta Kap­pa chap­ter at U of I and eventually served as chap­ter pre­si­dent. Eldriudge was additionally active in the Moscow community. He was pre­si­dent of the Mos­cow Chor­al So­ci­ety from 1930 to 1931, a lead­er in the re­gion­al Pres­by­ter­ian Church or­gan­i­za­tion, and Grand Mas­ter of the Ma­son­ic Lodge in Ida­ho. Eldridge died in August of 1962.