Daughter of Robert Carter Speer and Sadie May (Fox) Speer. Both parents were veterans of the Oklahoma Cherokee Land Rush that occurred on September 16, 1893. Robert died in 1963 and Sadie died in 1959.
Had a sister, Mrs. Lloyd Harnish of Fresno.
Anita and eleven other people were indicted in a major insurance fraud case in 1963. The case was eventually dismissed in mid-1967, with Speer and one other woman, Florence Ross, being the last two defendants to be cleared of charges.