Martha Ostenso (1900-1963) was a Canadian author. She immigrated to the United States
from Norway when she was two years old. Her family lived primarily in South Dakota
and Minnesota before moving to Manitoba, Canada in 1915 where her family farmed.
After teaching at a rural school and attending the Kelvin Technical High School, she
enrolled at the University of Manitoba in 1918. While in school she met Douglas
Durkin, her English professor, whom she would marry in 1944. The couple moved back
to Winnipeg in 1923, where she wrote her most well-known book, Wild Geese. She continued to write fifteen more novels,
the last of which was published in 1958. She died in 1963 in Seattle,
Washington.
