Born Anna Nantes Jacobson in Odessa, Ukraine, we know very little of her early life. She had two siblings and had lived in Paris for most of her adult life prior to 1912. She was a dressmaker and married to Samuel Abelson, a bookkeeper. The couple boarded Titanic at Cherbourg, heading for New York, where Samuel had a brother. 

Anna is believed to have escaped the sinking on lifeboat 10, her husband perished in the disaster. In New York she was assisted by the Hebrew Shelter. She came to know a lawyer, Edward Douglas Bolton through handling her case for compensation. They were to be married in 1920.  She would make several Atlantic crossings but would spend the nights on the deck wrapped in her White Star Line Steamer rug.

She was a guest at the Manhattan screening of the film A Night to Remember but was unable to make it through the entire film.  the couple reitred to Florida and Anna passed away on January 18 1972. Her widower joined her in eternal rest in December of the same year.