Anna Maria Francisca van Wageningen-Salomons was born in Rotterdam in the Netherlands on 26 June 1885, second daughter of Constant Theodor Salomons, director of a gasworks, and Trinette Marie Catherine Kortman-Salomons.

At the age of eighteen she had become a member of the Vereniging van Letterkundigen (Association of Literary Experts), proof to her that she was taken seriously by professionals.

A further novel was De Oude Doen (The Old Debt), published in 1922 under the pseudonym of Ada Gerlo, with the theme of a problematic marital relationship.

She had more success with Herinneringen van een onafhankelijke vrouw (Memories of an Independent Woman), published in 1915 under the same pseudonym.

The latter articles were to cause some problems when she moved to Sumatra as, inevitably, copies of De Groene Amsterdammer found their way there and her neighbours were all suspicious that she was writing about them.

[1][2] From 1924 to 1927 she lived with her husband in Medan on Sumatra, in the Dutch East Indies, although she made two trips back to the Netherlands because of the deaths of her parents.

[1][2][3] Salomons' husband died in 1941 and this, and World War II, led to a long hiatus in her writing activities.

Her home was damaged as a result of the Bombing of the Bezuidenhout in 1945 and she was forced to leave it, moving to live with a friend in Amersfoort.

Among the women writers, she knew Top Naeff, Ina Boudier-Bakker, Carry van Bruggen and Margo Scharten-Antink.

She was persuaded to put her memories on paper and was introduced to the publisher, Bert Bakker, who published her memoirs as Herinneringen uit de oude tijd aan schrijvers die ik persoonlijk heb gekend (Memories of the Ancient Times of Writers I've Known Personally) in 1960.