ABOUT THE AUTHORS   F. Ruth Jordan (Jackson/Van Epps) was born and raised on a farm in Sedona, Arizona. As an adult she lived and worked among the Navajo and Hopi for a number of years. Of this experience she says her “understanding and knowledge of the southwest and its people increased many fold. I cherish my lifetime friendships that originated during those years.” She began collecting the stories told by her father and other “old timers” over a course of about five years after husband, a missionary among the Yavapai, Apache, and Navajo, died of cancer. After returning to Arizona State University to earn her masters’ degrees in education and counseling, she began teaching college courses in Arizona history and conducting historical tours of the State. She started Following Their Westward Star in 1992, as a memorial to her father and to her beloved aunt, Helen Jordan, whose paintings illustrate the book.   Becky Tognoni Boudway was chosen to organize and present the stories of these pioneers after Helen Jordan read the author’s first book, Treasure in the Dust. In it, the author wove the stories of her father’s mining family into a history of the mining laws in the United States. For years she worked as a legal assistant in her father’s mineral law practice. Her own talents, education, and interests, however, followed her artist mother. Helen Jordan found a kindred spirit in the author and introduced Boudway to niece, F. Ruth Jordan; thus was born the collaboration which is Following Their Westward Star.