Graphic artist Elisabeth Hanson was born Elisabeth Miller on November 2, 1917 in Columbia, MO. Her parents were both academics: father M.F. Miller was a professor at and then dean of the College of Agriculture, and mother Grace Ernst Miller was a botanist. Elisabeth studied graphic art and cartography at Stephens College, and majored in art and minored in English the University of Missouri, graduating in 1938. During the Depression she worked as a chartist and layout artist for the Curtis Publishing Company in Philadelphia, and as a book designer for the Wisconsin Press in at the Uuniversity of Wisconsin, Madison in 1941 during World War II. In 1942 she married nuclear physics PhD student Alfred O. Hanson, who was recruited to work on the Manhattan Project.

The Hansons moved to New Mexico for Alfred's job at the Los Alamos atom bomb laboratory. While there, it appears that Elisabeth studied lithography at the New Mexico Highlands University, Las Vegas under printmaker Elmer "Skinny" Schooley (1916-2007). When the war ended the Hansons settled permanently in Urbana, Illinois, raising their family and continuing their careers. Elisabeth continued to work for a variety of publications as a paste-up artist, editor, and production manager. A champion of native prairie preservation, she also volunteered with the Map Committee of Middle Fork Valley, the Natural Areas Study Group of Champaign County, and the Urbana Park District Citizens' Advisory Committee. She died on May 14, 2016, in Urbana. 

An extensive obituary catalogues her adventurous life, including surviving the sinking of the Italian cruise-liner Andrea Doria in the Atlantic in 1956 - when she was six months pregnant.