Sheila Kuehl
Kuehl was born Sheila Ann Kuehl in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Her father, Arthur, was an airplane construction worker at Douglas Aircraft. He was Catholic and her mother, Lillian, was Jewish. As a child actress she performed under the stage name Sheila James.
Toby Twirl
According to Martin Hockley's "The Toby Twirl Adventure Books - A Collector's Guide" (Toby Twirl, Ltd., Burghfield Common, 2003, pp 6–7), Sheila Hodgetts was born on 27 January 1924, in Laindon, Essex. Her family moved later near to Eastbourne, Sussex, where she attended Brighton & Hove High School for Girls as a weekly border, a common practice at the time, when secondary schooling was not as widely available as now.
During World War II, she joined the WAAF (Women's Auxiliary Air Force) in 1941, and met her husband-to-be who was at that time serving in the RAF (Royal Air Force). They married in 1942 and have (as reported in 2003) two daughters, Tania (born in 1945) and Domini (born in 1948).
In 1946, when her husband was demobilised from the RAF, her family moved to the West Midlands where they have lived ever since.
Hodgetts is reported to have started her writing career in 1943, but no details of any early titles are known.