Geraldine Rosenberg was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, to a Zionist leader and his wife on July 14, 1907. She was a member of the Smith College class of 1929 but left college in January of 1928 in order to marry Herman Stern. She had two children before she divorced her first husband in 1948. Later she married Milton Wayne, a sculptor. Stern lived in Los Angeles for many years and wrote movie scripts. In 1952 she moved to New York City where she used her experience to write television scripts. From 1955-57 she lived in Paris and studied painting with Joseph Hirsch and Henri Gaoetz. She has exhibited her artwork in Paris, New York, and other cities and, after 1956, her paintings and barn-beam totems were collected by both private and public collectors. In addition to her journalistic writing for newspapers and magazines in the 1950s, Stern also wrote Daughters from Afar: Profiles of Israeli Women (1958); and Israeli Women Speak Out (1979) about Israeli women and feminism.