She was born the daughter of a plantation owner, William Perkins Parrish (1816-1863), and Lucinda Jane Walker (1828-1863), on September 12, 1853, in Pittsylvania County, Virginia.

At that point, she took up a job as a community schoolteacher to support her younger brother and her sister but struggled with her early teaching experiences.

In 1874, she accepted a position as a teacher in Danville, Virginia which allowed her to begin taking classes at Roanoke Female College with her younger sister.

[4] In 1892, Parrish had gained a significant reputation for her teaching and was offered a position at the newly opened Randolph-Macon Woman's College in Lynchburg, Virginia as the chair of mathematics.

In order to gain a better understanding of the field of psychology, she enrolled in a summer session at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York to study under the famous American psychologist E. B. Titchener.

Although Titchener is known as a rigid sexist (no women were permitted to join his Society for Experimental Psychology), he did accept a number of female graduate students, including Parrish.

Her second publication with Titchener titled "Minor Studies from the Psychological Laboratory of Cornell University: Localization of cutaneous impressions by arm movement without pressure upon the skin."

This work, largely inspired by Pillsbury and Washburn, added to the relevant information during that time of localization and perception of feeling on the skin.

[1] She was in charge of the lab and taught courses (some in child psychology) until 1911 when she became the State Supervisor of Schools in Georgia, which she remained as until her death in 1918.