Abigail M. Franquemont was born in Massachusetts. Her parents were anthropologists Ed Franquemont (1945–2003) and Christine Robinson Franquemont (1948–2013). According to Ann Peters in
Andean Past, Ed and Chris met at
Harvard, traveled as
hippies with their children to
Chinchero, Peru, and settled there to join the community and study traditional knowledge of
weaving, construction and agriculture in 1976 "in the context of social change". They returned to the U.S. around 1982, and by 1985 the family had moved to
Ithaca, New York, where the couple continued to research, and to contribute to the community there. Franquemont's younger sister, Molly Anne Franquemont (b. 1975), was reported missing in May 2013. Glen Griggs of
Sunnyvale, California was suspected of her murder, but was shot and killed by police in 2014.
Textile arts background Franquemont was born into a textile environment. Among friends in Chinchero, Franquemont and her sister spent their early childhoods within the
hand spinning and hand weaving culture of the local
Quechua people, before those ancient skills began to be lost to the influence of
Western society, as described in
Respect the Spindle (2009). the Franquemont girls learned to spin
alpaca fiber at or before the age of five years, hoping to reach a professional standard before adulthood. Spinning was part of their play. After the family's return to America, Franquemont attended
Lehman Alternative Community School, Ithaca, then read liberal arts at
Bard College at Simon's Rock. ==Career==