Effie Ella Grant Hardy was born in 1885. She attended the Yale School of Music from 1906 to 1909—the first Black woman known to enroll at Yale. At the time, the School of Music was one of only three Yale schools to accept female students. A soprano singer, Hardy received the Lockwood Scholarship and lived with a relative (possibly her mother) in New Haven while taking classes. It is not yet known why she did not receive a degree. She was later made an honorary member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority.
After Yale, Grant moved to Quindaro, Kansas, where she taught at Western University (since closed), likely the first Black university in the western U.S. and an institution renowned for its musical programs. She married Arthur W. Hardy, a director with the Y.M.C.A., and together they had two children. They lived in Ohio and later New Jersey, where she continued to perform professionally and teach music. In 1928, Hardy was invited by the sociologist Herbert A. Miller to present, along with her vocal students, to his classes at Ohio State University on the history of Black music. Hardy died on December 28, 1983, at the age of 98.