Virginia Tyler, writer, artist, and civic promoter, was born on December 22, 1914, in Oklahoma City. She moved with her family to Arkansas in the early 1920s, locating first in Springdale and later in Eureka Springs, where she still resides in 1988. She began a career in antiques when the late Olive Ellis opened a shop in Eureka Springs in 1938. Tyler managed Ellis’s shop until 1976. Then she acquired her own shop, which she operated until her retirement in 1985.

Tyler has written a variety of weekly columns during the past twenty years for the Eureka Springs Times-Echo. Two of her columns concerned the activities of clubs which she organized, the Alpine Hiking Club and the Ukulele Club. The other column, "Around Town," which she still writes in 1988, offers reminiscences, presents campaigns for civic promotion, and introduces newcomers and visitors. The Eureka Springs Chamber of Commerce honored Tyler in 1986 for her "Outstanding Community Service." The Eureka Springs Flashlight has dubbed her the "unofficial historian" of Eureka Springs.