Frankie Carlin Meyer was born in the Ozarks of Southwest Missouri and grew up on a farm ten miles from the Arkansas border. The Carlin Ridge farm is located in the Success community nine miles southwest of Rocky Comfort and five miles north of Powell. She is one of nine children born to Frank and Mary Carlin. As a child, she was fascinated by the stories that her parents told about their childhoods, their ancestry, and the area. That interest has inspired a life-long research of Ozark history and family history.

After graduating from Rocky Comfort High School in 1964, she moved to Springfield, Missouri, where she earned a degree in biology from Missouri State University. She later obtained a masters degree. During her twenty-eight-year teaching career, she taught high school biology.

Over the last twelve years, she has written over 700 weekly columns about genealogical research and Ozark history for the Joplin Globe, and she has compiled eight family history books. Her latest book, Bushwhackers, Visions, Star-Crossed Lovers, includes over 200 true stories that she selected from her files gathered during the last thirty years of research. The book contains over 200 photographs, many of which have never been published before. Readers will appreciate the many maps that the author has also included.

Frankie and her husband, Jim, live at Joplin, Missouri. They also own forty-three acres of her parents? old farm on Carlin Ridge. Their unique, wooded paradise has caves, springs, and steep hollows?an area so secluded that panthers once chose it for their dens. Today, Frankie and her husband often walk along the trails of that natural area. They also enjoy their Joplin flower garden which has wild flowers from the woods, as well as old-time perennials from her folks' yard.

The couple have a daughter and son-in-law, Janelle and Janelle; son and daughter-in-law, Greg and Allison; ; and grandchildren--Jacob, Evan, Mickey, Kathryn, and Claire.

A frequent speaker at conferences, she is available to give programs about this book, topics of Ozark history, and methods of research.