Silvia Pettem has published more than 20 books. Her newest title, “SEPARATE LIVES. Uncovering the Hidden Family of Victorian Professor Mary Rippon” is the true story of a pioneer woman educator who lived and worked in the male-dominated world of 19th century academia at the University of Colorado in the then small frontier town of Boulder.
Mary received wide acclaim for her teaching and is believed to be the first US woman to teach at a state university. But the Victorian social mores in 1878 forced her to lead two very separate lives. She was both a professional woman and a mother, hiding both her husband and child in Germany.
Author Silvia Pettem has a knack for pulling intriguing women out of the past through her books on history, biography, missing and unidentified persons, and true crime. She lives with her husband and two cats in the mountains west of Boulder.
