She attended Mechanic Arts High School and graduated summa cum laude from the University of Minnesota. After marrying Ken Seeley, Mabel moved to Chicago, where she wrote advertising copy while her husband worked on a master's degree. The Seeleys returned to the Twin Cities for medical treatment when Ken contracted tuberculosis, but they later divorced. Mabel went on to become famous for her mystery novels, and by the late 1940s she and her young son Gregory were resettled in California. In 1954, while in the East to promote her last book, The Whistling Shadow, Mabel Seeley met lawyer Henry Ross whom she married two years later.
Writing is hard work, and . . .
She was extremely intelligent, extremely generous, a devoted wife, mother, and grandmother.