Julia Carolyn McWilliams was born August 15, 1912, in Pasadena, California. She joined the Office of Strategic Services in 1942 as a research assistant in the Secret Intelligence division. She was posted to Kandy, Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), where she received the Emblem of Meritorious Civilian Service as head of the Registry of the OSS Secretariat. She married Paul Cushing Child, an OSS employee, in 1946.