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Effie Knowles was born in Key West in 1892 and died in Miami in 1984 at the age of 92. Knowles began her practice of law in 1926. For a period of 19 years, beginning in 1934, she served as an attorney in the Department of Justice. She returned to private practice in 1953 in Miami, and served as an attorney for the Seminole Tribe of Florida for over 20 years, beginning in 1955.

Novelist and playwright Evelyn Wilde Mayerson was associate professor of English and director of the composition program at the University of Miami, from where she received her B.A. in 1963. She is the author of several books set in South Florida including "No Enemy but Time" (1983) and "Miami: A Saga" (1994), as well as other titles. Her play "Marjory", about the life of Marjory Stoneman Douglas, was commissioned by the Coconut Grove Playhouse to celebrate Miami's centennial and debuted in 1996.

Minnie Moore Willson was born to a well-to-do country family near the town of West Newton, Pennsylvania, on August 14, 1859. Willson was a relative, through her mother, of President James Polk. Minnie Moore married James Mallory Willson, a native of Somerset, Kentucky, but a resident of Chicago, Illinois, on September 3, 1890 in West Newton Pennsylvania.

Willson's acquaintance with Kissimmee, Florida, began in the early 1880s. Wilson visited the area during the winter season and developed an interest in the Seminole Indians. Both Willsons were nature lovers and Minnie wrote for a number of wildlife magazines. The Willsons were active members of the Audubon Society of Florida and through Mrs. Willson's writings and influences, the town of Kissimmee served as one of the first towns in the state to become a bird sanctuary.

Through contacts with the Southern Baptist Organization, James Willson helped organize Baptist missionary crusades for the Seminole Indians. The Willsons were instrumental in the society known as "Friends of the Florida Seminoles". This organization dealt with the Indians through education and attempts to raise their standard of living. The Willsons proved instrumental in the passage of an act by the Florida Legislature in 1913, setting apart 100,000 acres in the extreme southern portion of the state for use by the Seminoles. The Willsons worked closely with the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the resident Indian Agent, and the National Indian Association, and their efforts culminated with passage of the bill.

Minnie Moore Willson served as first president of the Kissimmee Women's Club and thereafter was elected honorary president for life. She was also a member of the American Pen Women and other literary groups. Willson published The Seminoles of Florida in 1895. The book contained a vocabulary of the language by James Willson and the volume achieved unusual success. The Seminoles of Florida was rewritten, enlarged and re-edited in later years.

Willson also wrote short stories, the most famous of which was a collection of "slave" stories taken from an old slave woman from Virginia who lived among the Seminoles and claimed to have cooked the "treaty dinner" that marked the end of the Seminole War. Willson's last works included a short history of Osceola County and a monograph of the Indian Chief, Osceola. Minnie Moore Willson was an invalid a great part of her life, suffering from headaches and hip problems that required two major operations. Willson died on August 12, 1937. James M. Willson, also an invalid the last few years of his life, died on August 5, 1943.