Elizabeth McIlhaney’s maternal great-grandparents homesteaded the lush San Juan River valley of New Mexico Territory in the nineteenth century. Two generations of their progeny worked in the Indian...view moreElizabeth McIlhaney’s maternal great-grandparents homesteaded the lush San Juan River valley of New Mexico Territory in the nineteenth century. Two generations of their progeny worked in the Indian trading industry throughout the entire Southwest and Oklahoma as owners, managers, wholesalers and retailers well beyond the middle of the twentieth century. Beginning life in the North Valley of Albuquerque on her Texas-born father's dairy farm, Elizabeth participated in the ongoing relationship begun by her maternal family in 1851 with Baylor University, which both of her parents' families had by the 1890s, by earning a journalism degree there. She broke out of her family's traditions for women when she pursued a career as a newspaper reporter and editor, free-lance magazine writer and non-fiction book contributor spanning several decades in three states.view less