Hilda Menger was born October 29, 1901 in Delhi Township to George and Caroline Menger. Her siblings include Bertha, Claude, and Walter. Hilda's parents purchased the Daniel Ryan farm in Delhi Township in 1886. The front portion of the home was built by Ryan in 1879. The Menger family added the back portion of the home in the 1890s and built the barn in 1887 from wood harvested from DeCamp's Woods in Holt. The home remained in the family through George and Caroline's lives and was inherited by Hilda, who lived there for the rest of her life. 

The Menger family were pioneers of the area. Hilda's grandparents Jacob Menger (1820-1896) and Adelheit Ehlers Menger (1824-1889) settled in Ingham County in 1864, joining Jacob's brother George who had already resided in Delhi Township. The family received membership of the Lansing German Methodist Episcopal Church on March 13, 1864. The Jacob and Adelheit Menger family settled at the present day intersection of Cedar Street and Mount Hope Avenue, the present site of Walter French Junior High School. The family's children attended the Lansing Union School. The family only spoke German when they settled, which was a common occurrence in the area. In 1875, fifty percent of Delhi Township residents spoke German. In 1867, Jacob and Adelheit moved their family to the former Delhi Township farm of brother George Menger, who moved his family back to Dayton, Ohio. This farmland was located in the area of Eifert and McCue Roads. 

In 1868, the Menger family were among the group of founding families who built the first frame structure for the Holt German Methodist Episcopal Church, which was established in 1860 from the Lansing German congregation. Hilda's aunts Elizabeth Menger Fay and Mary Menger Campbell became members of the Holt congregation in 1868 and her father George became a member in 1875. The later generations of the family were born into the congregation, including Hilda in 1901. The Menger family were lifelong members of the church. 

Hilda attended the Gunn School, just across the road from the Menger farm, through the eighth grade. She went on to graduate from Lansing High School with the Class of 1917. Hilda was highly educated. She attended Michigan State Normal College (now Eastern Michigan University) in Ypsilanti, Michigan for two years before entering teaching. Her further education included a Bachelor of Science degree from Columbia University in 1933 and a Master of Arts degree from the University of Michigan in 1950. 

In 1920, Miss Menger joined Lansing School District as a teacher at Maplewood School, where she remained for ten years. She became principal of Larch Street School in 1930. She became principal of High Street School in 1932, and in 1940 was transferred to Allen Street School as principal. When Fairview Elementary School opened in 1954, she again moved to become its first principal, where she remained for ten years until her retirement from teaching in 1964. 

In her later years, Hilda was a Holt community historian. She was especially active in recording the history of the Gunn School. She was also the historian of the Holt United Methodist Church, of which her family had been members since the 1860s. Hilda lived to see Delhi Township's Sesquicentennial in 1992, during which she was a central figure sharing much local history as one of the area's oldest living residents. She is featured on the front page of the sesquicentennial newspaper. In the 1980s, Hilda wrote recollections of early Delhi Township history which were used as resources for the writing of A Michigan Sesquicentennial History of Delhi Township in 1987. 

She self published a memoir and family history in the 1980s titled These We Remember, still a scarce title to come by. Hilda Menger died July 29, 1995, aged 93 years. She is buried in Holt's Maple Ridge Cemetery. Following her death, the family home and her estate were sold in an estate auction. Some family photos survive with CADL Local History. The family portrait, shown below, was found in the Menger home some 20 years after Hilda's death and donated to the Holt-Delhi Historical Society. Hilda had been the caretaker of the original Gunn School record books, which she acquired from Clifford Cooley in the early 1960s. They were sold in her estate auction and sat in private collections until 2021 when they were donated to the Holt-Delhi Historical Society. The Menger home still stands on West Holt Road at the top of the hill between Onondaga and Washington Roads. The old Menger barn stood until just a few years ago when it collapsed. A watercolor of the Menger farm by noted local artist Arvilla Friar hangs in the Delhi Township Community Services Center.