Her work was part of the painting event in the art competition at the 1932 Summer Olympics.
Her parents were both interested in missionary work for the Seventh-day Adventist Church.
Her father was the first president of the College of Medical Evangelists, today Loma Linda University, and then their family went overseas as missionaries to Greece (1907–1909).
After her parents returned to the Washington, D.C., area, in 1909, she studied painting at the Corcoran Art School.
In 1921 she received the Peabody Prize from the Art Institute of Chicago and a silver medal from the Society of American Artists.