Anne Cerf was born on March 20, 1913 in New York City to Edward Lathrop and Elizabeth Biglow Ballard. She was educated at Brearley and Vassar College and in 1935 married pianist H. Arthur Dann. He taught at Oberlin College in Ohio and they had three children.

Cerf divorced her first husband and moved to California with her children, marrying violinist Raymond Cerf in 1943. She had two children with him. In 1949 the Cerfs moved to Lawrence, Kan. where Raymond began teaching at the University of Kansas. Raymond Cerf passed away in 1978.

Cerf's activism included participating in the League of Women Voters and Lawrence League for the Practice of Democracy; donating the original transmitter to Kansas Public Radio KANU's Audio-Reader Network and helping fund the Audio Reader program at the University of Kansas; serving on the board of the Villages, Inc. of Topeka, Kan.; and establishing such institutions as the Raymond Cerf Village, a group care home for children, the Ballard Community Center in North Lawrence, and Cottonwood, a program for adults with mental disabilities. She was also involved with Penn House, Biship Seabury Academy, Planned Parenthood, and the Lawrence Early Childhood Education Program of the Lawrence Schools Foundation, all in Lawrence.

Cerf was a charter member of the Drug Policy Foundation and a member of the Physicisn for a National Health Program (PNHP), an organization promoting single-payer health insurance.

In 1975, Cerf founded the Kansans for Improvement of Nursing Homes (KINH), serving as its president until the early 1990s. The group later became known as the Kansas Advocates for Better Care (KABC).

Anne Ballard Cerf, nicknamed "Petey," passed away on August 31, 1996.