Hansell was born in Los Angeles, California on July 11, 1897California Death Records to Edward and T. Belle (Carey) Hansell.U.S. Census reports, 1900-1930 Her father was an Englishman who arrived in the United States in 1877. Her mother was from Iowa. Edward Hansell worked as a jeweller and then an optician during the 1920s, and as an elevator operator during the Great Depression of the 1930s. Hansell found work as a stenographer and then as a dressmaker on the Warner Bros. lot.Leon Schlesinger interview, Baltimore Sun, June 20, 1937, from the Ledger Syndicate She managed to find work in cartoons at the Walt Disney Studios and provided squeaks for Mickey Mouse.United Press story, Dec. 13, 1934 That same year, she found work in the Leon Schlesinger Productions and Walter Lantz Productions.
