Snyder was born and raised in Sorento, Illinois, as the fifth of eight children (seven daughters, one son) to parents Orla and Mabel Johnson.
She attended Greenville College and graduated from Seattle Pacific University with a bachelor's degree in zoology.
[1] During In-N-Out's early years, Snyder managed all of the company bookkeeping herself, creating thousands of pages of handwritten notes and accounts.
She met Harry Snyder in 1947, while working at a restaurant in Seattle; the two were married the following year and moved to Baldwin Park, California.
Following her husband's death, Snyder spent the last two decades of her life living in Glendora, California, where she owned a home that author Stacy Perman described as "a ranch house shaded by oak trees and fronted by a white fence."