[1] She and her sister Hendrika Arnolda were the daughters of Arnold Jens, vice president of the aldermen in Batavia and his wife Anna Apollonia de Geus.
She was very young when her father died and her mother remarried the widower Andries van Vessem, manager of the Batavian Orphanage.
[1] During the nine years of her first marriage to Gose Theodore, Anna Jens acquired the dubious reputation that she treated her house slaves with exceptional cruelty.
She was indicted and fined at a number of occasions and eventually summoned before the Supreme Court in Batavia, convicted for abuse, all rights to keep slaves were withdrawn and she was placed under observation.
[1] Why Victor Ido van de Wall dedicated an entire chapter to Anna Apollonia Jens in his 1923 chronicle Vrouwen uit den Compagnie’s tijd is unclear.