LaFrance grew up in a nurturing household under Jim Crow laws, which between 1876 and 1965 prescribed segregation and disadvantaged social, economic and educational conditions for African Americans in the United States.

[2] When her mother died, she left home to take various jobs in a hospital, caring for children, cooking, working in the tobacco barns and a ceramic factory where she decorated brand-name whiskey bottles.

Not limited to two-dimensional media, LaFrance was an exceptional quilt maker and wood carver of animal sculptures and articulated dolls with handmade textile clothing.

LaFrance also created 28 religious paintings, inspired by the verses she read in a dramatic visionary style and divergent from her better known works due to their explosive colors, themes and size.

In the exhibition catalogue, associate program director Dave Perkins wrote, "These works have a life force, the effect of which is that they are not mere renderings of Biblical events or memories or personal visions or revelations, but something alive.

One of LaFrance's earliest public works is a 1940s mural depicting Jesus praying in the garden of Gethsemane, painted on the entire concrete wall of the choir loft of St. James AME Church in Mayfield, Kentucky.

LaFrance's work is represented in many notable public and private collections in this country and in Europe, including Oprah Winfrey, Gayle King, Bryant Gumbel, Beth Rudin DeWoody, and contemporary artist Red Grooms.

The Owensboro Museum of Fine Art holds examples of her work in its collection and featured her in a cataloged show in 1991 called "Kentucky Spirit, the Naive Tradition."

"[7]: 1  She celebrated her 100th birthday in 2019 among family and friends, many who traveled from as far as Memphis and Nashville, Tennessee to attend church, watch a 2019 award-winning documentary on her life and her art, and visit with her.