Emma Frances Baker was the youngest daughter of Rev. Edward K. Baker, a Congregational Minister who had been a missionary and printer in Madagascar, and his wife Ruth. There is some debate in sources about where the three Baker daughters were born, but family records suggest that Emma was born in Port Louis, Mauritius (after the family left Madagascar during a period of increasing unrest). In 1845, when Frances was an infant, they brought their family to Australia and settled at Morphett Vale, in South Australia.

In 1864, Emma married Mr William J. Anderson, of the Mauritian Civil Service. She left Australia to go to her husband's home in Mauritius, and at a time when many South Australian settlers were nostalgic for England, her verse expresses regret at leaving her 'native land', Australia.

William and Emma's first daughter died of 'Convulsions (Teething)' at the age of fifteen months, and a family letter records that 'She died at Grand River, near the sea, where William and Emma, who had been ill with fever, were residing for a few weeks.' Their second child, also a daughter, born at Pt Louis, died of 'fever and teething' at eight months. Emma herself was apparently not physically strong, and died on Easter Day, 1868, apparently of epilepsy.

Her writings were collected together by her husband William and published in England after her death.