Lilian White Spencer was a well-known Colorado poet. She was born in 1876 in Albany, New York. She was the fifth of nine children of Frederick W. and Catherine (McGurk) White. At the time of her birth, Spencer's father was a writer for and part owner of the Albany Union. He had entered the field of journalism shortly after his marriage and during the early years of his career wrote for the New York Sun and edited the . Eventually the family left New York and moved to Denver, Colorado. Frederick White became famous in the West and throughout the country as an editorial writer, critic, and essayist for the Denver Post, under the initials F.W.W. Spencer followed her father into journalism after attending a series of French convent schools from which she graduated at age 15. She worked briefly