BABETTE BALLINGER AND RAYMOND EVANS BALLINGER were married for twenty-five years. Raymond began writing Earthbound in 1984 by interviewing family members, who are for the most part now deceased. Upon his death in 2005, Babette felt that Earthbound was not just an important part of his legacy and  family history, but also a significant historical portrait of an American family in transition during the first half of the twentieth century.



Babette had to learn how to edit and how to write, but she went about it the same way she learned how to design knitwear- painstakingly researching everything she could find to learn about publishing and writing, then making it her own. Completing Earthbound was not only a massive challenge, but a labor of love

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RAYMOND BALLINGER was born in Marlton New Jersey and grew up in New Jersey and in Culpeper, Virginia. He worked in New York City as an actor and director. He owned the Rhinebeck Summer Theatre and eventually retired to Yorktown Heights New York where he taught acting and wrote. He died in July of 2005 at the age of sixty-eight.





BABETTE BALLINGER was born in New York City and grew up in Memphis, Tennessee. She graduated from Washington University in St. Louis with a degree in Fine Arts. She worked as a fashion designer in New York City where she owned her own knitwear company. Babette was married to actor-writer Raymond Ballinger for twenty-five years. She currently lives with her three dogs in Yorktown Heights New York.