With her husband, painter Horace Day, she co-directed the art department of Mary Baldwin College in Staunton, Virginia from 1941 to 1956.

Mary Elizabeth Nottingham was born on November 29, 1907, in Salisbury, North Carolina, and grew up in Culpeper, Virginia, a place she often depicted in her later work.

[1][2][3] Nottingham attended the Art Students League of New York for three years, studying under George Bridgman, Kenneth Hayes Miller, Kimon Nicolaïdes, and John Sloan.

[1][3] She married painter Horace Day in 1941 and they became co-directors of the art department at Mary Baldwin College, a responsibility they shared until her death in 1956.

[1] Mary Elizabeth Nottingham Day died on April 2, 1956, at the age of 48, at Kings' Daughter's Hospital in Staunton, Virginia.