[1] Turner was a native of Centralia, Illinois, who moved with her family to Kansas City, Missouri, when she was ten.
[2] A 1915 honors graduate of Northeast High School, she took a job during the day for Havens Structural Steel Company and took night classes at the Kansas City School of Law[3] she graduated in 1922 and began work with the law firm of Hagerman & Jost.
[2] Turner had not planned to seek office, but changed her mind when some of the men in her law school classes voiced objections to the idea of women serving as office-holders.
[3] Besides her political career, Turner was active in historic preservation as well; she is said to have been part of the effort to save the George Caleb Bingham House and Huston Tavern in Arrow Rock,[6] both today part of Arrow Rock State Historic Site.
[5] In 1932 she married a real estate agent, Walter C. Jepson, a veteran of the United States Air Force who had served in both World Wars.