Background
Named Anna Stinchfield Hopkins when she was born in Cook County, Illinois on February 8, 1911 (birth certificate No6407), Anne told her husband, Robert Baker Aitken, that her name was later changed (when she was old enough to remember the event, perhaps six to eight years-old) because Stinchfield did not provide positive numerology readings. Her mother, Marian Stinchfield Hopkins, was born in Detroit, Michigan, and was 25 when Anne was born. Her father, Lambert Arundel Hopkins, born in New Mexico, was a 29-year-old "railroad supply man" when she was born.
Education
Anne spent the years 1929 to 1931 studying abroad as an undergraduate at Oxford University and graduated from Scripps College in Claremont, California, with a Bachelor of Arts in English in 1932.
Career
She then pursued a master"s degree in sociology, first at Stanford University in 1933, and later at Northwestern University (1940–1942). In addition to her Oxford years, she also lived in England from January to June, 1937. She traveled to Sweden, Finland, France, Germany, Spain, Japan, Italy, México, and much of South America before becoming a teacher and assistant director at Happy Valley School in 1949.
She went on to study the Dharma with Haku’un Yasutani, Sōen Nakagawa and Koun Yamada.
She was neither a prolific writer nor a frequent speaker, but she is remembered fondly around the world for her dedication to the Dharma and support for the Sangha. At her memorial, many recalled how she had touched them individually and made each one feel as if only they were special to her.
