Joanna Carver Colcord was born on March 18, 1882 in the South Seas, about sixty miles off the coast of the French colony of New Caledonia, to Lincoln Alden Colcord and Jane French Sweester Colcord. Joanna was born onboard her father's barque Charlotte A. Littlefield, where she lived until she entered the University of Maine at the age of eighteen. She graduated cum laude in 1906 with a degree in chemistry. In 1911, she received a certificate from the New York School of Social Work and began a life-long career in social service.

During her career, she headed numerous organizations including, in 1929, the Charity Division of the Russell Sage Foundation in New York City. Her publications in the field of social service include The Long Way, Emergency Work Relief, Your Community, Cash Relief, and Broken Homes. She is also known as one of the foremost collectors of American sea songs and language. Roll and Go: Songs of American Sailormen, published in 1924, stands as the first comprehensive collection of American sea music. Other publications related to American maritime heritage include Sea Language Comes Ashore, published in 1945, and several articles in the journal The American Neptune.

Joanna married Frank John Bruno in 1950, after which they moved to St. Louis, Missouri. She died in 1960.

Lincoln Alden Colcord, the younger brother of Joanna Carver Colcord, was born August 14, 1883, near Cape Horn, South America to Lincoln Alden Colcord and Jane French Sweester Colcord. Like his sister, he too was born onboard their father's barque Charlotte A. Littlefield, where he lived until he entered the University of Maine at the age of eighteen. He became a short story writer, poet, novelist, and journalist. At age thirty, he transcribed close to 150 family letters, intent on publishing them in book form. Joanna assisted editorially and contributed letters that she had saved from their parents. Unfortunately the project was never finished by Lincoln, as World War I interrupted (Albee, xx). The project was eventually completed, just not in either sibling's life time, as Letters from Sea 1882-1901: Joanna and Lincoln Colcord's Seafaring Childhood by Parker Bishop Albee, Jr.

Lincoln married Blanche Meade Morgan; they had one daughter, Inez, before Blanche died in 1924. He then married Frances Brooks; they had one son, Brooks. Lincoln died suddenly in 1947.