In the 1930s to 1960s, La Tour acquired hundreds of paintings and graphic art works by modernist artists, many of whom later became notable.

[1][2][3][4] During the Great Depression, she was Director of the Federal Art Gallery in New York City, which supported artists under the auspices of the Work Projects Administration.

From 1948 to the 1960s, she designed and built three unusual and creative homes where she displayed her collection, often inviting diverse groups of people to mingle and experience modern art.

She lived for a time with her father in Montana,[10] and then with her step-mother and half brother (see Alva La Toor below) in Oklahoma.

[11] La Tour attended Graceland College in Lamona, Iowa, where she met[1] Albro Latimer Kellock, whom she married in 1920.

She had a close relationship with artist Arnold Franz Brasz, with whom she shared a studio in the Beechwood area of Hollywood, California.

"As a result of occasional disputes with Jungbeck, Onya began to spend some time in Indianapolis [Indiana] in 1938 and 1939.

As a result, the Federal Art Project supported such iconic artists as Jackson Pollock before their work could earn them income."

This enabled her to move her collection temporarily to Indiana University, because the fire hazard was high in the dry Fall at the new Museum.

In 1947 and 1948,[9][17] La Tour bought land closer to the town and artists' colony of Nashville, Indiana.

When she returned from New York City around Thanksgiving, an electrician turned the electricity on while La Tour was shopping in Nashville.

Just as La Tour returned home about noon, moisture caused an electric box near the kitchen to burst into flame.

[9] La Tour and her husband in the 1960s, Carl McCann, designed and built a "dream house" on North Browncliff Lane in Bloomington, Indiana.

When Manya was 8 1/2 (1934), Onya left her at a Catholic boarding school for poor children, in Paris, France.

La Tour died in June the same year, and was buried at Greenlawn Cemetery, Nashville, Indiana.

Towards the end, her good friend Ellen Lee, a Senior Curator at the Indianapolis Museum of Art, sometimes drove La Tour to spend a few hours at St. Blue Cloud's house.

La Tour deeded her property to the Roman Catholic Church,[5] and willed funds for construction of a community center in Nashville, Indiana, which were used for a conference room in the Brown County Library.