Glen Hyde was born in 1898 in Spokane, Washington, the middle child of R.C. and Mary Hyde. Glen was raised in Washington, California, Canada, and Idaho and attended college in Oregon and Idaho. After leaving college, he worked with his father on the family farms in Southern Idaho, east of Twin Falls.

Bessie Haley was born in Takoma Park, Maryland, just north of Washington D.C., and was raised in Maryland, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia. She attended Marshall College in West Virginia, but left school for a brief marriage to Earl Helmick, then left for San Francisco, where she studied art in 1926 and '27.

Glen and Bessie met aboard a steamship between San Francisco in 1927. After Bessie divorced Earl Helmick, she married Glen in Twin Falls and together they worked on the Hyde farms through the summer of 1928. That fall they launched on their honeymoon voyage through Grand Canyon.

When they failed to appear at journey's end, R.C. Hyde launched a massive search of lower Grand Canyon by foot, horse, boat, and airplane. Although the scow was soon found afloat and abandoned, no trace of the honeymooners was ever found. R.C. Hyde kept searching sporatically for another year to no avail. He died in Twin Falls in 1945 after being hit by a potato truck.