She was the co-founder and director of the Layton School of Art in Milwaukee, Wisconsin from 1920 to 1954, with her life partner Miriam Frink.

She was enrolled in Dana Hall, a preparatory school in Massachusetts paid for by her mother's wealthy brother, and returned home after her father's death.

During this time, Partridge also had a studio where she devoted herself to design work, freelanced as a commercial artist, and studied painting at the traditional Chicago Art Institute night school.

She also taught summers at Commonwealth School of Art and Industry in Boothbay Harbor, Maine until 1916 with her mentor and former teacher, Miss Emma M. Church.

In 1915 Partridge met her life partner Miriam Frink who had returned to Downer College (where she held a degree) to teach freshman English.

For the first few years the co-directors both continued teaching at Downer College while sharing the administrative duties and educational responsibilities at Layton.

"[10] Upon retirement, Charlotte and Miriam were honored by the Milwaukee Common Council for having built an "art school nationally accredited and recognized for the excellence of its work".

[2] The Works Projects Administration (WPA) was a public program that included funding for arts with the purpose to provide employment for American's during the depression.

[11] One of the public works projects active in Wisconsin under the WPA that interacted with the local FAP chapter was the Milwaukee Handicrafts Project (MHP)[12] that was praised by First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt who visited in 1936, writing about her experiences in her newspaper column, "My Day": "I have just come back from one of the most interesting mornings I have ever spent.

University President Thomas S. Smith called her contributions farsighted, even prophetic, "beyond the field of art into industry and the general cultural and social life of the state".

In 1967 the Zonta Manor ran into financial difficulty and ownership transferred to the American Baptist Management Corporation which carried on its original purpose.

She did "whatever was asked of her" which included guiding the group in parliamentary procedure and recruiting artists to teach at the community house.

Frink was born on August 4, 1892, in Elkhart, Indiana, and had joined the school's faculty a year prior.

After her death on February 25, 1975, at the age of 92, Frink continued to work with her niece Susie Habenicht to write a history of the Layton School of Art, though it was never published.