Everitt Young (Janet Everitt Maclean Young) had been born around 1907. She was a student at Edinburgh University from 1928 to 1932 and she graduated with degree of M.A. (Honours) in English in 1932. She had studied at the School of Rhetoric and English Literature. On graduation Young enrolled at St. George's Training College in the city, to become a teacher. In 1938 she sailed to South Africa on the MV. 'Dunnottar Castle' (Union Castle Line) to begin teaching there, in Benoni and Johannesburg. Her health deteriorated in 1946. As a child she had suffered from a rheumatic complaint.

Her letters to a friend made at University - Margaret Ivory Ritchie Buchan - provide an interesting picture of life in 1930s Edinburgh.