Edna Eicke was born in May 1919 in Montclair, New Jersey, and studied advertising and fashion at Parsons School of Design. Her first job was at Sue Williams's Display Studio in New York then she worked as a window-display creator and illustrator. She later got a job in the art department at House and Garden, and produced covers and inside illustrations for magazines, such as Vogue, Mademoiselle, Women's Day and The New Yorker. She painted fifty-one covers, nearly all depicting scenes of childhood. Many of these were inspired from her own childhood and life in New York City. She continued to paint New Yorker covers until 1961, and then illustrated children's books.