[2] She earned her bachelor's degree at the University of North Dakota in 1895 and in 1896 voyaged to Europe with classmates and faculty from Carleton, touring Germany, France, and Switzerland.

[4] The Whartons moved to Cumberland County, Tennessee, in 1917 where Edwin had secured a position as the principal of Pleasant Hill Academy, a boarding school for disadvantaged youths established by the American Missionary Association.

[6] During the 1919 flu pandemic she provided medical care for families throughout the Cumberland Plateau, traveling on country roads by buggy, mule, and horse to visit her patients.

[1] As the epidemic raged across the state, she bore witness to its devastating effects on rural Tennesseans, who lacked hospital facilities and trained medical personnel.

[9] Following Edwin's death in 1920, May continued serving as a community physician in Pleasant Hill, founding a three-room hospital with Alice Adshead and Elizabeth Fletcher.

Following the construction of the Memphis to Bristol Highway (now Tennessee State Route 1) in 1927, she established clinics in nearby communities and provided outreach programs for their residents.

[12] In 1957 she also established Pleasant Hill's May Cravath Wharton Nursing Home, which went on to be incorporated as the retirement village Uplands, Inc. That same year, the University of Chattanooga gave her an honorary degree.