Mildred Augustine (later Wirt Benson) was born on July 10, 1905, in the small town of Ladora, Iowa.
Mildred Augustine was born on July 10, 1905, in Ladora, Iowa, a small rural town, to Dr. J.L. Augustine, a physician, and Lillian Mattie Augustine. Growing up in a household that valued education and independence, she developed a love of writing and physical adventure early in life, publishing her first story in a children's magazine as a child.
Her Iowa upbringing instilled in her a pioneering, self-reliant spirit that would characterize both her personal life and the fictional heroines she later created. She went on to attend the University of Iowa, where she became a trailblazer in journalism education for women, and this small-town beginning belied the extraordinary national influence she would eventually have on American popular literature and journalism.
Her birthplace and Midwestern upbringing are frequently cited by biographers and Iowa historical institutions, including the University of Iowa Libraries' Iowa Women's Archives, as foundational to understanding the resourceful, adventurous character of Nancy Drew, the fictional detective Benson would go on to author under the pseudonym Carolyn Keene.
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