She was raised in a family of intellectuals, including a sister Elisabeth Zernike [nl] who became a novelist and a brother Frits who would later win the Nobel Prize for Physics.

[1] Shortly after they arrived, Zernike discovered she was pregnant and began working on her thesis which she titled, On historical materialism and social democratic ethics.

Beint, their son was born on 1 March 1918 and that same autumn, she received her[5] doctorate in divinity from the University of Amsterdam under the direction of Professor H. IJ Groenewegen.

[1] Zernike returned to the ministry but not with the Anabaptists, as she felt a greater affinity with a more liberal and newly formed church belonging to the Dutch Protestant Association (NPB).

Thus, she formed a choir and a theater,[7] the congregation visited museums regularly and were apt to discuss Bible verses based on an analysis of paintings by Rembrandt or other artists.