Dorothy Milligan was born in 1926 in Snow Hill, Arkansas, and moved to Sulphur, Oklahoma, as child. There she began her career in journalism at the town newspaper while still in high school. She earned a master's degree in English and journalism from East Central University in Ada, Oklahoma, pursued a career in education as a teacher and counselor at Byng Public Schools, and later worked as a correspondent for the Ada Evening News. Milligan continued to indulge her lifelong love for writing and in the 1970s compiled The Indian Way series, as well as a book of children's stories based on interviews of First Americans.