(née Frayer) and Arthur Tappan Burnell,[2][4] a professor and school principal with positions in the states of Washington, Kansas, Kentucky, Alabama, Tennessee, and Oregon.

[2] Burnell studied at Lake Erie College in Cleveland, Ohio, and Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York.

[10] Burnell and her sister Elizabeth vacationed at Longs Peak Inn in Estes Park, Colorado, in the summer of 1916.

Concerned about her health, Garetson decided that Burnell was a frail city slicker, but after some time in the mountains she said her friend "looked wonderfully pretty animation transforming her into a beauty".

[6][14] Burnell's closest neighbors were the Fall River Lodge and Horseshoe Inn, about 1 mile (1.6 km) from her land.

Burnell walked 4 miles (6.4 km) east to town to visit friends, pick up her mail, and purchase groceries and supplies that she carried back to her cabin.

[9] She made long treks, wearing snowshoes in the winter, up to 30 miles (48 km) away on the Ute and North Inlet trails.

[17] Burnell wrote poems and stories that Mills reviewed for her, and she typed pages for Your National Parks that he was writing.

Elizabeth visited in the summer of 1917 and took a sabbatical to spend a year in 1918[15][c] when they were trained by Enos to be nature guides for Rocky Mountain National Park.

[19] Burnell and Mills developed a close relationship through conversations about conservation and education, hikes, and shared values.

[3] Enos Mills wrote about his wife and child in Development of a Woman Guide and Burnell published A Baby's Life in the Rocky Mountains about Enda.

He then had an abscess that required surgery in his mouth and jaw, the infection brought on blood poisoning that stopped his heart in the early morning of September 21, 1922.

[10] Having married Enos, Mills never finalized her homesteading claim (that required five years of farming to get title to the land).

The book is readable, and, though factually flawed, it is reliable in its devout loyalty to preserving the image of the famous man whom Esther won and lost in so brief a span.

"[31] Mills prepared a series of scrapbooks of his life, with his papers and articles written about him that is in the collection of the Western History Department of the Denver Public Library.