Elswyth Thane

Helen Ricker was born in Burlington, Iowa, the daughter of a local teacher and high school principal. She moved with her family to New York City in 1918 and changed her name to "Elswyth Thane". She began working as a freelance writer in the 1920s, and became a newspaper writer and a Hollywood screenwriter. Her first novel, Riders of the Wind, was published in 1926. In 1927, she married 50-year-old naturalist and explorer William Beebe. Her most famous work was …