[4] After her family moved to Denver, Colorado around 1887, Ward graduated from high school in 1889 and began studying art with artists such as Preston Powers, Ida M. Stair, Samuel Richards and Henry Read.

[5] In New York, Ward joined the Art Student's League and studied under Augustus St. Gaudens, Daniel Chester French, and Siddons Mowbray.

[6][7] Around 1898, Ward traveled to Paris where she created the Boy and Frog sculpture that was later awarded a medal at the 1904 St. Louis Worlds Fair.

[8] Ward produced a number of her works at this point in her life, including Mother and Child and The Huguenot, both prize-winning pieces in the Charleston Exposition in 1902.

After her mentor, St. Gaudens died in 1907, Ward finished many of the pieces he was commissioned to create including the Baker Memorial in Mount Kisco, New York and a monument for Marcus A. Hanna in Cleveland, Ohio.