Forrest W. Bassett was born at Beloit (Rock County), Wisconsin on December 1, 1897 to Daniel F. and Ida V. Bassett. On July 20, 1917, he was sworn into military service at Jefferson Barracks, St. Louis, Missouri. Soon after, he was transferred to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas for training as a radio operator in Company A of the U. S. Signal Corps' 6th Field Battalion. In late May of 1918, Bassett was posted to Camp Wadsworth at Spartanburg, South Carolina, awaiting overseas transfer for World War I military duty.

Bassett shipped to Europe for duty in July 1918 and returned to the United States in June 1919. He spent 40 years at the Yates-American Machine Company and, after retiring from there, he worked an additional 10 years in the credit department at Dane Aluminum Company.

Ava Marie Shaw, to whom Bassett was writing in this collection, was born in Chicago, Illinois on October 11, 1903 to Robert and Esther Shaw. By 1910 the family was living in Woodstock, Illinois, northwest of Chicago, and by 1917 they had moved to Wisconsin, where Shaw's family was from, including where her three older siblings were born.

Ava Marie, or Marie, worked as a secretary at several different companies and for the Second Congregational Church in Beloit; she was also a teacher of speech and oral interpretation for several years. A gifted actress and singer, she was a founding member of the Beloit Civic Theatre and a former president of the group Treble Clef.

Bassett and Shaw married on March 6, 1920 in Beloit, Wisconsin. They had two children: Sally Ann and Terrence Shaw. Forrest W. Bassett died on August 3, 1985, and Marie (Shaw) Bassett died on October 8, 1992.