Mrs. Ziegler was born April 13th, 1841, in Schuylerville, NY, the daughter of Henry D. and Electa Abel Curtis. She was still in her teens when she married Edward R. Gamble. Their one son, Charles, born in 1862, lost his eyesight when still a baby. Edward Gamble died not long thereafter and the young widow, left in modest circumstances, found employment on a national magazine until, in 1885, she married William Ziegler.

His origins were also humble. The son of immigrants from Germany, he was born in Pennsylvania and raised in Iowa. He gained some knowledge of chemistry as a druggist's clerk and after graduating from Eastman's Business College in Poughkeepsie, NY, he developed a quick-rising baking powder that he was sure was superior to, yet cheaper than, competing products. Bursting with confidence, he set out on foot with a satchel of the powder done up in paper bags to sell his product directly to housewives in the villages and towns of Iowa. In only one year, his success was such that he could, with partners, organize the Royal Baking Powder Company, which became the basis of his large fortune. This was the man Matilda Ziegler married in 1885.

In 1901, the Zieglers adopted Mr. Ziegler's five-year-old nephew. In later years, William Ziegler, Jr., was to carry forward and enlarge his mother's activities on behalf of blind people, serving, among other things, as president of the American Foundation for the Blind.

The senior William Ziegler devoted his later years to scientific discovery and exploration. The expeditions to the Arctic he financed in 1901 and 1903 did not manage to reach the Pole. Indeed, that goal was not attained until 1909 with Admiral William Peary's expedition. William Ziegler died while his second expedition was still lost somewhere in the Arctic, and his last words were an appeal for the rescue of the men.

It was Matilda Ziegler's share of William Ziegler's multi-million dollar estate that enabled her to finance the launching, maintenance, and ultimately endowment of the monthly magazine.

Matilda Ziegler was reluctant at first to have her role disclosed, preferring to remain anonymous. But family and friends finally persuaded her to allow the magazine to carry her name. An exceptionally private woman, who did not want even photographs of her to be kept, she never set foot in the magazine's office, never wrote a line for it, and never suggested any editorial policies.

She did, however, request that the magazine avoid such controversial subjects as religion and politics, because she wanted all readers, no matter what their beliefs, to be able to enjoy it. She also asked that the magazine refrain from publishing scandal. This was perfectly agreeable to Walter Holmes, who had equally firm moral standards.

Electa Matilda Ziegler died September 1st, 1932, aged 91, at her New York mansion. During the celebrations of the magazine's 25th anniversary earlier that year, she received a letter from president Herbert Hoover praising the "wonderful blessings she had bestowed." Gratifying as was this tribute from the White House, it probably meant less to her than the 1,200 letters sent to her from magazine readers at Christmas 1927, most of them bearing the postscript, "I typed this myself." Those letters were instigated by Homes in a column suggesting that this would be a nice way to observe the magazine's 20th anniversary.