[3][4] She grew up in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois,[1][5] but spent much of her youth also in southwestern Pennsylvania, her mother's native district.
[5] She graduated from the University of Illinois and later became a fashion reporter in Paris and an advertising copywriter for the Abraham & Straus department store.
She wrote several novels set in exotic locales ranging from Caribbean islands to the jungles of Peru.
Producer-director Cecil B. DeMille bought the novel and, with numerous alterations, produced a popular movie version starring Paulette Goddard and John Wayne in 1942.
[7] Strabel was so enamored of Key West and its unique history that she built a house there following the sale of the story to The Saturday Evening Post in 1940.