Born in Alabama, she became involved in liberal causes which included women's suffrage and racial equality, issues she incorporated into some of her writing.

She joined the ACLU, the NAACP, and the Democratic party, and identified herself as an atheist, raising concerns among her family and friends that she had become a Communist.

Her brother began to get involved with politics, which she didn't agree with at first, but soon developed similar views, describing herself as a "left-liberal New Dealer".

[3] In 1954 and 1955 she published two picture books for small children, which were retellings of American Indian legends, under the pseudonym Emily Broun.

[citation needed] From 1959 to 1966, she and her younger daughter Barbara Lindsay wrote the Kathy Martin series (about a nurse and amateur sleuth) of young adult novels, published under the pseudonym Josephine James.