Karla Jacobsen Squier was born in Washington, D.C. in 1931 to Charles J. Jacobsen and Norvelle H. Newton. Her parents divorced when she was a child and her father served in the Army Air Corps during World War II and was frequently stationed out of the city. Her grandfather on her father’s side, Christian F. Jacobsen, was the president of the Metropolitan National Bank in Dupont Circle, and she remembered visiting him there as a child. Her great, great grandmother was Elizabeth Heurich Jacobsen, Christian Heurich’s sister who immigrated to Baltimore and encouraged Christian to join her there. Karla grew up in the Petworth neighborhood during the Depression and World War II, but left the city in 1945 with her mother to move to San Francisco, then back to the Washington area, and finally to New Jersey to finish high school. Karla then attended college and worked in New York City in the fashion industry for a few years before moving back to New Jersey. She married Donald O. Squier and the two had two children, Christian and Dawn, but they divorced and Karla became a single mother. She took her children back to see family in Washington, D.C., often and eventually became involved in New Jersey State politics for the Republican Party – working on campaigns for Governor Thomas Kean, Sr., and eventually leading the New Jersey State Board of Elections. Karla retired from politics in 2002 and moved to North Carolina, where she remains active in local politics and serves the community by working at a foodbank.