Humbly self-described as a "teacher and preacher",[1] Wolfe was a woman of many accomplishments in her field, an education reformer, and a pioneer who challenged racial and gender barriers.
[4] Reverend David Wadsworth Cannon was educated at Lincoln University and Princeton Theological Seminary, and was the pastor of the First Baptist Church of Cranford, New Jersey.
[1] She participated in many extracurriculars at Cranford High School, including the National Honor Society, history club, tennis, and basketball, and she excelled academically.
[4] Wolfe dreamed of attending Oberlin College due to its liberal reputation and its longstanding acceptance of women and African Americans, but in 1929 the Great Depression began and the options for her pursuit of higher education became financially limited.
[5] Wolfe worked many jobs to earn money for her commute to school, which she made by train, her tuition, and her books.
[3] Wolfe worked one summer setting up educational and recreational programs for the children of migrant laborers in Maryland.
[4] Her doctoral dissertation was entitled A Plan for Redesigning the Curriculum of the Rural Laboratory Schools of the Tuskegee Institute.
[4] During that time, she was not only a principal, but the head of the Institute's Department of Elementary Education and the Director of the Graduate Studies Program.
[3] While working at the Tuskegee Institute, Wolfe continued to pursue her education, and attended a summer session at Vassar College via scholarship in 1944.
[3] While in that position, Wolfe also served as a chairperson for the admissions committee, coordinator of the campus laboratory school, and director of the African Study Abroad program.
[1] The work that she did in that position originated Head Start, financial aid, community colleges, and modernized vocational education.
[3] She returned to New Jersey and resumed her work at Queens College, involving herself in many committees and school groups, including sponsoring the Kappa Delta Pi chapter there and participating in the International Honor Society in Education.
[3] In her retirement from her career as an educator, Wolfe was still very involved in a number of civil rights and advocacy groups, including a membership in the NAACP, her vice presidency of the National Council for Negro Women, and her position as the Grand-Basileus of the African American sorority Zeta Phi Beta.