Maria Olga de Moraes Sarmento da Silveira was born in Setúbal, 26 May 1881.

She was a daughter and granddaughter of military men, spending part of her childhood in Elvas, where she became a friend of Virgínia Quaresma.

She succeeded Ana de Castro Osório as editor-in-chief of Sociedade Futura (founded 1902).

She was affiliated with Liga Portuguesa da Paz (Portuguese League of Peace), co-founding the organization and serving as president of its Feminist Section in 1906.

For more than thirty years, she was a companion and partner of Baroness Hélène van Zuylen, of the Rothschild banking family of France, whom she saved from the Holocaust by taking her to Lisbon and then to New York City.