Born in Texas, Olive Elizabeth Martin Burns, a.k.a. Tucker, has been a teacher, tour guide, art-museum docent, folk-art collector, and family historian.
A sixth-generation Texan, Burns boarded for two years at Ursuline Academy in San Antonio, Texas, and is a graduate of Incarnate Word College. She was married for sixty-one years to attorney Harry J. Burns.
Now widowed, Tucker has retired to Dallas. She has a son, a daughter, and two grandchildren, and has recently taken up historical research and writing.