Anna Grimes was born in North Carolina on August 1, 1835. A resident of Raleigh in her youth, she attended St. Mary's School. She was close friends with Margaret Eliza Cotten and their correspondence was discussed regularly in her diary. Grimes lost her mother in 1854, an event documented towards the end of the diary. She eventually married John Cobb Stickney and moved to New Orleans, where she died on July 28, 1869.