Caroline Agnes Boa was born on April 7, 1877, in Wisconsin. She graduated from Mount Holyoke College in 1901 and taught high school English and Latin in Red Oak, Iowa until 1903. She then taught in Des Moines, Iowa until 1907. Henderson took up a "claim" to land in the panhandle of western Oklahoma, not far from the New Mexico border. On May 7, 1908 she married Wilhelmine Eugene Henderson, a farmer. They lived on a farm in Eva, Oklahoma and had one daughter, Eleanor in 1909. Eleanor enrolled at the University of Kansas and completed a BA and MD at the university. In order to help finance her education, Caroline went to Lawrence and shared an apartment with Eleanor, while teaching school part-time. Caroline also enrolled in graduate courses in English and in 1935 received a Masters of Arts degree. Caroline and her husband lived in Oklahoma through the worst years of the Great Depression and their farm was located in the heart of the "Dust Bowl" region. Caroline's work on the farm included housekeeping, canning, cooking, tending the vegetable and flower gardens, ironing, as well as caring for chickens. In the final years of her life, Henderson suffered from an injured wrist and deteriorating eyesight. As a result of health issues, she and her husband relocated in the winter of 1965 to live with Eleanor in Arizona. Caroline A. Henderson died on August 4, 1966, in Phoenix, Arizona.
From the guide to the Caroline A. Henderson Papers MS 0547., 1946-1965, 1898-1965, (Mount Holyoke College Archives and Special Collections)
