Grace Cochrane Sanger was born in Newark, New Jersey to Charlotte DeWolf Hague and William R. Cochran, who worked as an editor. She had one older sister, Arline. In August of 1905, she married Dr. Frank Dyer Sanger, a general practitioner who had graduated from Johns Hopkins University. The couple had four sons – Frank Dyer, Jr. (1907-1911), Hamilton Hague Sanger (1909-1995), Frank DeWolfe Sanger (1913-1997), and Edward Johnson Sanger (1917-2000).