The Ohio Connection

• Mildred Wirt Benson and her first husband, Asa Wirt, were newly wedded when they moved to Cleveland, Ohio in the early 1930s.
• Living in Cleveland, Benson began writing the first of many books to be published under her own name.
• In 1939 Benson followed her husband to Toledo.
• By 1944 Mildred went to work for the Toledo Times (later it became the Toledo Blade). Between reporting and parenting her only child, Benson continued to produce books at a steady rate.
• Husband Asa Wirt died in 1947 after a long illness.  The same year, Benson received an order to write her second-to-last Nancy Drew title, The Ghost of Blackwood Hall.
• Mildred married her colleague at the Toledo Times, George Benson, in 1950.
• Mildred Wirt Benson continued to work at the Toledo Blade until her death in 2002.  During her 58 years at the Blade she covered virtually every news beat.  She was a columnist for the paper at the time of her death.