Beryl Mildred Cryer was born Beryl Mildred Halhed in 1889 in Auckland, New Zealand. Her family immigrated to British Columbia, eventually settling down in the town of Chemainus where she married William Claude Cryer, a local businessman, and had one child. In addition to many newspaper articles on aboriginal myths and history, she published one small book, Legends of the Cowichans, in 1949. She died in Welland, Ontario in 1980.