Born and raised in the beautiful Finger Lakes Region of New York State, an area rich in the history of the American Revolution, Gwendolyn Koehler earned a Bachelor of Science Degree from the State University of New York at Buffalo and a Master of Arts degree from Lesley University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She retired from her teaching career in 2000 and moved to Alpharetta, Georgia, with her husband Arthur C. Koehler.

Gwendolyn found an advertisement in the newspaper that caught her interest. Bulloch Hall, the 1839 home of Mittie Bulloch, mother of President Theodore Roosevelt, was looking for Volunteer Docents. She answered the ad, fell in love with the house and the story of the Bulloch/Roosevelt family and entered her journey into the Southern past. What began as a volunteer opportunity to pursue her love of history evolved into a lengthy second career. (One of the Bulloch docents now calls her a galvanized Southerner.)

At Bulloch she was responsible for recruiting and training docents, the research library and archives, the intern program, participation in historic reenactments, and in planning special events. She developed and led specialized Decorative Arts and Architectural tours of the house. She was a member of the Advisory Board of the Schools of Anthropology, Geography, and GIS at Kennesaw University and the North Georgia Archives Association. Gwendolyn shared the story of the Bulloch/Roosevelt families with many civic groups, the Daughters of the American Revolution, Children of the American Revolution, Daughters of the American Colonists, Colonial Dames, Bulloch Guilds, book clubs and others. A list of her presentations is available on this website under History/Presentations.

As in-depth research soon revealed it was necessary to authenticate the available information regarding the history of the family, and other projects. With her coauthor, Connie Huddleston, she traveled to the Houghton Library at Harvard University where a collection of Bulloch and Roosevelt family letters are preserved. The nine-year project involved interpreting and transcribing hundreds of pages of family letters written during the 19th century.
With the support of Friends of Bulloch and the Bulloch Hall Guilds three books of the letters were published: Mittie and Thee, An1853 Romance; Between the Wedding and the War; The Bulloch/Roosevelt Letters 1854-1860; and Divided Only By Distance and Allegiance, The Bulloch/Roosevelt Letters 1861-1865. The books are available at the Friends of Bulloch Gift Shop at Bulloch Hall, Amazon, and Barnes & Noble.