Virginia Struble was born in West Liberty, Iowa, on August 16, 1900, the daughter of Dr. and Mrs. L.W. Struble. She grew up in Davenport, Iowa, where she graduated from high school. She attended Augustana College in Rock Island, Illinois, and got a library degree from Columbia University. After getting her degree she taught and was on the library staff at Kansas Teachers College and at the University of Iowa. In September 1936 she married Merrill G. Burlingame, professor of history at Montana State College in Bozeman. The couple had one son Ray Burlingame. Virginia researched and wrote widely on Montana and Western history, primarily under the pseudonym John Linton Struble. As Struble, she wrote an article on Bishop Tuttle for the winter 1956 issue of Montana The Magazine of Western History, entitled "The People's Bishop". The following year she published a children's story entitled "Cactus." Her largest research project was a biography of John J. Healy. A portion of her research on Healy was published by Idaho Yesterdays as "Johnny Healy Strikes it Rich." She also wrote Clad with Zeal as a Cloke on the history of the Christian Women's Board of Missions and the Christian Women's Fellowship in Montana. Together with her husband, she wrote One Hundred Years of Disciples in Montana (1964) on the Disciples of Christ. She died November 19, 1993. Her husband died a year later.