Walter Allen was born in Boston, Massachusetts March 21, 1840, but the family soon moved to Worcester, Massachusetts, where he lived until his marriage. He graduated from Yale in 1863 and in the same year enlisted in the 26th Regiment Massachusetts Volunteers. Shortly thereafter he was mustered out to become Acting Assistant Paymaster in the U.S. Navy. After his discharge in August 1865 he decided to move west and began his newspaper career in Cairo, Illinois and Cincinnati, Ohio. During his years as a journalist he wrote for 8 different newspapers, mostly in New York and Boston. He died in Boston in 1907.

Grace Weston was born September 5, 1840, in New Braintree, Massachusetts. She graduated from the Oread Institute in Worcester and from the finishing school of the Misses Anabele in Philadelphia, after which she served as a governess for two years in Chicago. They were married on October 9, 1866.

This biographical sketch was excerpted in part from "Biographical Sketches, Yale Class of 1863," which was reproduced in Ten Years a-Courting. [For more information on Grace Weston, see History of the Oread Collegiate Institute (1905) by Martha E.B. Wright, bio. sketches]