Kathleen Hegarty Thorne was born in Kansas City, Missouri, close to the location where her emigrant grandfather from Ballinaheglish, County Roscommon had settled. She graduated from Avila College, and obtained Master's Degrees from the University of Missouri at Kansas City and the University of Oregon in Eugene, Oregon, where she currently resides with her husband, Lew.

Kathleen has previously authored two historical works, The Story of Starlight Theatre, a chronicle of the birth and development of the second largest outdoor theatre in the United States, and The Trail Tribune, a compendium of vignettes about people and events at both ends of the Oregon Trail.

In 1992 Kathleen travelled to County Roscommon to seek her Irish roots, and research family records. She found, instead, the whisperings of neighbours regarding her family's involvement in the War for Independence, and a forgotten gravesite in the old Ballinderry Cemetery. And thus her quest began.