[1] She served as the director of the Lodge Pole Senior Center and was a Native American champion at Montana State University.

[1][3] Her father Ernest Crantz Sr. was of French Chipewyan descent and her mother Felistis Chopwood was born an Assiniboine – Gros Ventre.

She learned the custom of storytelling from her grandmother, mother and aunts, and would eventually pass her own stories down to her descendants and others through her poetry.

[3] She received a BS in Education at Central Michigan University and earned a Master's degree in counselling at MSU-Northern.

Her courses covered a broad landscape of cultural knowledge, from traditional medicine to how stars were used to guide the way at night.

[7][8] Allen felt a strong responsibility to share and pass on her knowledge of Assiniboine customs and language to others.

[12] Allen would also share her knowledge of the Gros Ventre and Assiniboine languages and customs with scholars and academics to preserve them, as well as the stories of her people and the traditional medicines and plants they would use.

[13][14] In 2016 she was recognized by the U.S. House of Representatives with an official "Tribute to Minerva Crantz Allen" after receiving an award for her work preserving the language of her elders.