A trained nurse, Louise de Kiriline Lawrence ran the Dionne Quintuplets' nursery for a year, then married and moved to the Ontario woods. There she became interested in nature observation and through her own determination and effort became a world-renowned ornithologist, bird bander and writer.
Aleta Karstad was born (1951) and grew up in Guelph, Ontario, but lived as a girl in Wisconsin and Georgia as her father studied wildlife pathology. Her formal art training was at Central Technical School, Toronto, where she studied watercolour under Doris McCarthy.