Dorothy Mary Neal was born in Christchurch, New Zealand, in 1915.
[1] She was educated at Avonside Girls' High School followed by Canterbury College.
[2] When in 1939 Neal married a noted Dunedin second-hand-book seller, Richard (Dick) Desmond White, she continued to work under her maiden name as the City Council required women to resign on marriage.
[2] After the death of her first husband in 1967, she married Dunedin doctor Robert Edmund Ballantyne in 1968.
[3] The Dorothy Neal White Collection, held by the National Library of New Zealand contains over 8,000 titles of pre-1940s children's literature.