Billa Hansen was the daughter of a farmer and fisherman, was born and grew up in the village of Sandur, and trained as a schoolmistress in Denmark, where she then found employment. In the 1880s and 1890s, she wrote eight poems, which were printed in the Faroese periodical Várskot in Copenhagen from 1898 to 1899.
Many of her poems were included in Føriskar vysur, 1892, and Smásangir og sálmar, 1899, the precursor of Songbók Føroya Fólks, which still features one of her songs.
