Frances Ahrens, later Frances Ireland Marshall, was born in Chicago in 1910. Managing a magic shop with her first and second husbands, Laurie Ireland and Jay Marshall, she was responsible for decades of new tricks, new books, and magic reporting in magazines. For many years she performed kids’ shows. After she’d officially stopped, she secretly performed once or twice a year. She told a friend, “It’s not right for me to be writing books about magic unless I still have a feeling for it.” Frances knew everything about the profession and might tell you about it with wilting honesty, if you could stop her for a conversation. “Magic shop!” she’d answer the phone with a sharp, impatient warble. She had things to do.
