She was born in Guadalajara, Mexico, to the dentist George Edward Purnell and his wife Idella.
She studied at the University of California, Berkeley, where the poet Witter Bynner was one of her teachers and she served as an associate editor of the literary magazine The Occident.
[1][2] After graduating from the university in 1922, she returned to Guadalajara and became a secretary in the American Consulate there, continuing in that position through 1924.
In 1925, she served as the head of the foreign book department at the Los Angeles Public Library.
Beginning in 1935, she opened a gold mine at Ameca, Mexico, remaining there through 1937.