[2] With her parents, Samuel and Rosa (née Trebitsch), and six siblings she moved to Dallas in 1904, where the family helped her ailing grandfather Lazar in the running of his pawn shop;[3] there she attended the public schools.
She found work as a stenographer while taking night classes at the Dallas School of Law, an affiliate of Southern Methodist University.
To hear the case Governor of Texas Pat M. Neff hit upon the solution of an all-female court, as women were not eligible for membership in the Woodmen and so would not have a conflict of interest.
She took active leadership positions, both at the state and regional levels, in the 1932 presidential campaign of Franklin D. Roosevelt and John Nance Garner, gaining much support from members of Business and Professional Women's Clubs nationwide.
[3] From 1941 to 1947 she was an assistant district attorney for Dallas County, specializing in domestic-relations matters;[5] during her time in the position she created a unit especially to jail fathers who were delinquent in paying child support.