Mary Elting, Franklin Folsom, and Michael Folsom

Mary Elting was born in 1906 in Creede, Colorado, and, as the first person in her family to attend college, studied at the University of Boulder at Colorado. After graduating from college she moved to New York to work for Forum Magazine, where she was promoted to copy editor after one week of working as a secretary. Since then, except for a year studying in France, she worked consistently for several decades writing children's books and as an editor for book and magazine publishers. Elting passed away in 2005.

Franklin Folsom was born in 1907 in Boulder, Colorado, and attended the University there. He met Mary Elting his sophomore year and they were married ten years later. After graduating, he taught at Swarthmore for two years, and then spent three years at Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar. He served as an able bodied seaman in the Merchant Marine during World War II. In 1948 he joined Mary in working full time writing children's books, and later began writing books for adults as well. In addition to being a prolific author, Folsom was a determined social activist. His membership in the anti-fascist League of American Writers spurred years of government surveillance, continuing up to 1986's Great Peace March, of which he was the oldest member. Folsom passed away in 1995.

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