Born in New York City, NY on December 26, 1936, Farrer has known what her career trajectory would be since she was 12 years old. However, it took her a while to achieve her goals--stopping along the way to marry, raise a family, be a community activist, build a day care center, etc. She graduated from Hayward Union High School in June 1953, where she also earned life membership in the California Scholastic Federation. She entered the University of California, Berkeley, the following September, finally graduating in June 1970 (BA Anthropology)--the year of the Kent State massacre and the year Berkeley was in such turmoil that there were no graduation exercises (a pity for one already committed to ritual). She then taught elementary school (6th grade) before matriculating at the University of Texas, Austin, in August 1971 where she took an MA (anthropology and folklore-1974; thesis: Performances of Mescalero Apache Clowns) and a Ph.D. (anthropology and folklore-1977; dissertation: Play and Inter-Ethnic Communication: A Practical Ethnography of the Mescalero Apache). Recruited to the National Endowment for the Arts, Folk Arts Program, she worked in Washington, D.C. (1975-1977) before taking up residence as a Weatherhead Fellow at the School of American Research in Santa Fe, NM. for the 1977-78 academic year. Hired in 1978 as an assistant professor of anthropology at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, she moved to California State University, in 1985 as associate professor, to develop and inaugurate an applied anthropology certificate program. She is currently Professor of Anthropology at CSU-Chico. The recipient of many grants and awards, she has also been named the 1993-94 Outstanding Professor (a yearly competition among the 700+ faculty) and has been honored by being selected as a1999-2001 Master Teacher.