Daughter of Israel and Cecilia Eliza Levy Cohen, Anna Maria Cohen was brought up in Baltimore a member of one of the city’s preeminent Jewish families. She was the youngest of seven, including Benjamin, Joshua, Georgie, and Eleanor Septima. The name of the young girl who appears with her in this photograph has been lost; it was likely a family friend.

In 1890 she married Abram Minis in Savannah, Georgia; less than a year later, twenty-eight years old, she had died.