 In an interview in "The Mirror" of Manchester, New Hampshire, she claimed to have been born in 1865 in Hamburg, Germany.The "Guinness Book of World Records" listed her as an American, born in 1869, and various accounts place her either in Hoboken or Elizabethtown, New Jersey in her youth.In the July 1937 issue of "Strength & Health" magazine, Rosetta Hoffman made the claim that Minerva had lifted 23 men and a platform, in a 3,564–lb hip-and-harness lift.