Ada Collins Anderson was born Ada Collins in Tarrant County, Texas in 1921. She attended Anderson High School in Austin and received her bachelor’s degree in home economics from Tillotson College in 1941. In 1943 she met Marcellus J. (“Andy”) Anderson, a graduate of Ohio State University who was then teaching at Samuel Huston College in Austin. They married and she lived with him at his army posting in New Jersey during the Second World War. In 1953 Ada Anderson helped found the Austin chapter of Jack and Jill of America, a social and recreational civic organization for youth, in which she held administrative posts for many years. Seeking a graduate degree, she was the first African American to enroll in the University of Texas Graduate School of Library Science. In 1965 she received a graduate degree in educational psychology from the University of Texas. She worked as a teacher and psychometrist in Austin, assisted the Austin Community College Board and the University of Texas, and served on the board of the Laguna Gloria Art Museum for fifteen years. She was a founding member of the Austin Lyric Opera, and in 1989 initiated the creation of the Leadership Enrichment Arts Program to offer low-income and minority youth a chance to experience the performing and visual arts. Ada Anderson has received numerous civic awards and testimonials, including election to the Texas Black Women’s Hall of Fame, the leadership award from the Austin Chamber of Commerce Business Committee on the Arts, and a commemorative resolution adopted by the Texas House of Representatives in 2005.