Background
Hildegarde was born and raised in Franklin, Pennsylvania, the oldest of four children born to Clifford and Katherine Dolson.
Hildegarde was born and raised in Franklin, Pennsylvania, the oldest of four children born to Clifford and Katherine Dolson.
From 1926 to 1929 she attended Allegheny College, in Meadville, Pennsylvania, but left at the beginning of her senior year to live in New York City.
Her work appeared in major magazines, plus she was the author of fifteen books—all published under her maiden name of Hildegarde Dolson. She would later joke: "The day I arrived in New York, in October 1929, the stock market crashed with a bang." After holding down numerous jobs, Dolson found work as an advertising copywriter for Gimbels, Macy"s, Franklin-Simon, and Bamberger stores. She sold her first manuscript to The New Yorker, and was later published in other major magazines, including Harper"s, Ladies Home Journal, McCall"s, and Reader"s Digest.
After her first book was published in 1938, Dolson became a full-time freelance writer