Reinertsen's mother, a relative of General William Tecumseh Sherman, was orphaned in infancy and was adopted by Col. Samuel French, who traced his ancestry to the Mayflower.

[2] Reinertsen came to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, when four years of age, her father having made that decision after receiving a shipbuilding patent and a portion of Jones Island.

One of her best sketches, "A Forbidden Topic", was incorporated in Osgood Eaton Fuller's 1884 book entitled Brave Men and Women: Their Struggles, Failures and Triumphs.

In 1873, she began addressing the topic of temperance, particularly the custom of children being allowed to carry beer from saloons to homes and shops.

One of her later articles on the subject was forwarded to Mark Twain, who highly commended it and was strongly in favor of the reform.

[6] Eventually, an ordinance was secured in Milwaukee, and thereafter, hundreds of cities and villages passed laws against the custom of spitting on sidewalks.

[1][2][8] Her son Rex was killed in September 1907 when he suffered a fractured skull after being thrown from an automobile, aged 30.