"[2] Murbarger was born in South Dakota in 1909, to Harry C. ("Clem") and Bessie Nell (White) Lounsberry.
In the 1920s, Murbarger and her mother started the West Coast Curio Company, which sold seashells, urchins and gold-rush era relics.
She is credited with finding the first specimen of Lithophragma maximum a rare flowering plant found on San Clemente Island.
[2] After World War II ended, she retired from the newspaper business and devoted her efforts to freelance writing.
She also had articles published in newspapers such The Christian Science Monitor, The Salt Lake Tribune, and smaller papers.
Murbarger wrote under pen names such as Dean Conrad, Greta Joens, Dale Conroy, and Costa Mesa Slim.
In the late 1980s, she was living with her partner Ed Gueguen in a Costa Mesa bungalow that had the last of the inventory of the West Coast Curio Company.