[1] After attending local schools, she operated a sculpture studio in Decatur for about two years, before moving to Brooklyn, New York City to study at the Pratt Institute.

[4] She stayed on at Saint Gauden's studio to finish several of his commissions, including the Phillips Brooks Memorial at Trinity Church in Boston, Massachusetts (dedicated 1910);[5] and eight larger-than-life caryatids for the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo, New York, which she executed from his sketch models.

Critic Adeline Adams saluted the work in the magazine Art and Progress: "For me, this relief remains a most satisfying example of modern American sculpture.

It delights because of the fitness of the theme and treatment to the purpose specified, the architectural strength of the design, the dignity, delicacy and sureness of the modeling, the harmonious rhythms of the figures and draperies; in short, because of its general state of grace as a modern classic.

"[9]In 1916, Joseph Parsons commissioned Grimes to create two bas-relief panels to flank a fountain at his country house in Lakeville, Connecticut.

[11] She exhibited regularly at the National Sculpture Society, whose 1929 catalog states that her work included "many bas-relief portraits, and busts, especially of children.