Julia Carolyn McWilliams was born August 15, 1912, in Pasadena, California. She worked for the Office of Strategic Services as a research assistant in the Secret Intelligence division during World War II. She was married to Paul Cushing Child, also an OSS employee, and the two were in Lumberville, Pennsylvania, in 1946. In 1951, she graduated from the Cordon Bleu cooking school in Paris and later studied with famous chefs.