At age 16, she met U.S. Air Force Second Lieutenant Ross Eugene Woodiwiss at a dance. They married the following year, on July 20, 1956. She attended school locally and graduated in 1957. Her husband's military career led them to live in Japan, where she worked part-time as a fashion model for an American-owned modeling agency. After over three years in Japan, the family moved to Topeka, Kansas and then settled in Minnesota. During these years, she attempted to write a novel several times, but each time stopped in frustration at the slow pace of writing in longhand. After buying her husband an electric typewriter as a Christmas present, she appropriated the machine to begin her novel in earnest.