Anna Minerva Henderson was born in Saint John to William R. Henderson, an African American Civil War veteran who moved to New Brunswick, and Henrietta Leake, who was born at Kingsclear, York County, N. B.  Mr. Henderson worked as a barber and his wife as a school teacher. After obtaining her teaching certificate, Anna Minerva Henderson taught briefly in the Black community in Nova Scotia. In 1912, after completing a business program, she wrote the federal civil service exam for clerical workers and scored one of the top marks. This began a 33-year career in Ottawa, where she worked as a stenographer for the Dominion Land Branch of the Department of the Interior and later for the Immigration Board of the Department of Mines and Resources. At this time there were few visible minority people working for the federal government. During her years in Ontario she wrote poetry and contributed a column to the Ottawa Citizen newspaper.  Her poems were published in Canadian Poetry Magazine and an anthology of poetry from 1937 to 1939. Ms. Henderson retired from the civil service in 1945 and worked in a law office in Saint John for three years before moving to Washington, D.C. where she was employed at the American University. In 1967, Canada’s centennial year, she self published, at Fredericton, a “chaplet” or small book containing 22 poems. Her publication Citadel made both Canadian and New Brunswick literary history. At the time she was 80 years of age.  This lover of books and the written word passed away in 1987 and was buried at Saint John’s Fernhill cemetery, with her parents.