She entered the Sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary in Marylhurst, Oregon, and took her religious vows on August 5, 1941.

[1] She later received advanced degrees from the University of Washington in Seattle, the Parsons School of Design, and the Art Institute of Chicago.

[2] Turnbull taught at elementary schools operated by the Sisters of the Holy Names, including St. Francis of Assisi and St. Patrick's in Spokane, Sacred Heart in Seattle, and All Saints in Portland, Oregon.

[3] In a 2000 essay in Sisters Today, she wrote that "art tells a story and helps the viewer recognize that deep longing for beauty and the presence of God in all creation.

Her works included a two-foot crucifix for the St. Aloysius Church convent's chapel, walnut statues for cemeteries, crosses made from mahogany and birch, ceramic holy water fonts, and welded representations of saints.

[5] At the Sisters of the Holy Names convent, she designed the metal gates and a sculpture of founder Marie Rose Durocher.

She helped to arrange for the installation of more than a dozen public artworks in Riverfront Park, including pieces by George Tsutakawa and Harold Balazs.

The seven-foot steel sundial, unveiled in 1976, is embossed with bronze depictions of fauna and flora endemic to Australia on its gnomon.

Created for the 1974 world's fair, the corten steel sculpture depicts a billy goat and is surrounded by basalt columns.

[10] At a 40th birthday celebration for the goat in 2014, the Spokane Parks & Recreation Department estimated that it had "eaten" over 14,000 cubic yards of litter.

She designed panels depicting athletes at the Hillyard Aquatic Center, the metal bear mascot at Central Valley High School, the sasquatch statue at the Spokane Community College,[5] and a small statue of baseball player Eddie Gaedel at O'Doherty's Irish Grille.

[3] Her 2006 work Fish On is a memorial to Mike Cmos, a worker who died in an accident at the Riverside Park Water Reclamation Facility.

The bronze, brass, copper and steel statue was inspired by Georges Seurat's A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte.