Winifred Louella Bown was born on July 5, 1889, and grew up on the family farm in Sullivan County, Pennsylvania. Winnie graduated from high school in 1906, and taught school there for several years. She then moved to Lancaster, Penna., to attend business school. This is where the first of her albums starts, at Lancaster Business College, and after graduating, working in Lancaster.

Ira Franklin Shenk, born in 1899, grew up in a Mennonite family in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. He enlisted in the Army in 1917, serving  as an ambulance driver in France during World War I. He met and married Winnie after the war, and they moved to Flushing, New York. They raised two children there, Betty and George. After the children were grown, they moved to Orlando, Florida, for many years. Their final move was back to Lancaster, Pennsylvania, where Ira passed away in 1970, and Winnie in 1979.