Claire Henty-Gebert was born in the Barrow Creek area of the Northern Territory. Her Dreaming is Kwatye (rain). Her mother was an Aboriginal woman and her father a white property owner in the region. Due to her father's murder, Henty-Gebert and her brother were taken away to Alice Springs' Bungalow, a children's home for Indigenous children. She was never to see her mother alive again.

At the outbreak of World War Two, Henty-Gebert was taken to Croker Island by the Methodists. In 1942, after four months on Croker Island, she left for the mainland due to the threat of the Japanese. Henty-Gebert was taken back to Alice Springs to the Bungalow but the number of refugees from the north meant there was no accommodation available. She travelled to Sydney where she was temporarily based at George Brown's College before being moved to Otford, New South Wales. In 1946, after the war, Henty-Gebert returned to Croker Island.

In 1956, Croker Island was given back to its traditional owners, and Henty-Gebert and her family had to move to Darwin. While in Darwin, she worked in the Sisters' Kitchen at the Old Darwin Hospital. Henty-Gebert was living in Darwin when Cyclone Tracey passed through. Her house was fortunate enough to survive while houses around hers were blown away.

In 1989, Henty-Gebert visited her Mother's family for the first time in over fifty years.