A former student of Sydney Richmond Burleigh at the Rhode Island School of Design, she died by suicide in his studio by gas poisoning at age 45.

After emigrating to the United States, when the Civil War broke out, he managed a hospital in Portsmouth and later became one of Rhode Island's leading surgeons.

[2][13] A 1916 exhibition, American Art News described her work: "Miss O'Leary shows about forty water colors of decorative quality in which quaint and dilapidated old buildings and tumble down rookeries are the motive and several studies of bridges.

[3] One of the featured artworks on display was a portrait of O'Leary painted in Paris in 1910 by Carl Johan Nordell [Wikidata], The Pink Scarf.

[3] On the 100th anniversary of O'Leary's death, the Providence Art Club held a commemorative memorial presentation to celebrate her life.

[21] Today, the Art Club owns and displays O'Leary's portrait by Nordell, The Pink Scarf, as well as many of her artworks in their headquarters.

[21][25][26] Maxwell Mays, a painter who occupied Burleigh's former studio at the Providence Art Club, regularly told guests of his encounters with O'Leary's apparition.