As a child I was always making up stories and drawing pictures, but at age seven, I made up my young mind that I would be a nurse. My dolls were always sick and even my patient dog occasionally allowed me to bandage one of her limbs.

I have lived in the Chicago area all my life, currently in the southwest suburbs. I love Chicago, even its unpredictable weather, although my children don’t feel the same. Two of the five live in the area. The others live in Missouri, New Jersey and London, England. I have nine grandchildren, two with British accents.

I did pursue my childhood dream and earned a Bachelor of Nursing degree from Mercy Hospital-St. Xavier College and later earned a Master’s Degree from Northern Illinois University. Throughout my forty-five year nursing career, I wrote articles for both nursing and medical journals.

I am the author of the Emma Winberry Mystery Series. The Accidental Sleuth was published in 2007, The Stranger in the Opera House, in Sept. 2009.

I grew up in a household listening to the Saturday Metropolitan Opera broadcasts on the radio. I learned to love the music and voices and always wanted to be a supernumerary, an extra in the opera, but the demands of profession and family left this dream unfulfilled. So I have done it vicariously though my character, Emma Winberry. Like Emma, I am an avid gardener and bake all my own five-grain bread.

During my nurse’s training, I spent a three-month psychiatric rotation at the old Chicago State Mental Hospital, also known as Dunning, on the northwest side of Chicago. I wrote a paranormal/historical novel about this experience titled, Notes in a Mirror, publication date, November, 2009.

Through the years I turned another hobby into an avocation and became an accomplished artist, painting many portraits and a series of street scenes. Four of my paintings of historic Maxwell Street in Chicago are part of the permanent collection of the Chicago History Museum.