[2][3] She moved with her family to Westerville, Ohio, in 1895, where her father, Gustav Meyer, had taken a job teaching music at Otterbein College.

In 1911, she received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Ohio State University, having majored in mathematics and physics[4] and studied foreign languages, statistics and music.

After graduation, she moved to Amarillo, Texas, where she lived from 1911 to 1918[6] and worked as director of music at a military academy and, later, chair of the mathematics department at the local high school.

She was recruited at the highest possible rank of chief yeoman and after some time in the Postal Cable and Censorship Office she was assigned to the Code and Signal section of the Director of Naval Communications.

Her efforts were not limited to manual systems; she was involved also in the emerging machine technology of the time, which was being applied both to making and breaking ciphers.

[7] In recognition of her work, the United States Congress awarded Driscoll $15,000, which she shared with the widow of the machine's co-inventor, William Greshem.

After almost two years of work on her new assignment, Driscoll and her team were unable to make progress in solving the German device.

That was partly due to her unwillingness to use machine support or a mathematical approach, but she also refused the help of British code breakers from Bletchley Park who had traveled to the United States to advise her.

[10] From 1946 until her retirement from the National Security Agency, she filled a number of positions, but she did not advance to the ranks of senior leadership.