Lynn Hall has always loved animals--dogs and horses, in particular--and has kept them around her as much as possible. As a child she was limited to dogs, friends' horses, and the animals found in the horse and dog books at the local library. From her earliest memories she recalled that her big dream was to "live in a little house in the country, preferably all by myself, and to own lots of dogs and a wonderful horse.

"There were years full of false starts and mislaid directions along the way to that goal."

The path Hall traveled to reach her goal began on November 9, 1937 in Lombard, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago. When she was still a child, her family moved to a suburb of Des Moines, Iowa. "I am the middle one of three daughters. My mother was an English and later a Spanish teacher. My father worked...