"[1] Born in Kensington, London in 1909 to Henry and Mildred Cruso, she was raised mostly in Surrey.

Cruso then began working at the Museum of London where she became Assistant to Director Mortimer Wheeler in the costume collection.

In the summer of 1934 she was sent to Ireland to attend a dig there where Cruso met American archaeologist Hugh O'Neill Hencken.

They married in 1935 and Cruso assisted him on the last year of the Harvard Irish Mission before returning to the United States with him.

During a visit to the UK, Cruso came up with the idea of a gardening show, Making Things Grow, which ran on PBS from 1966 to 1969.