Her father was born in 1840, enslaved on a plantation in Warrenton, Virginia; in adulthood, he worked at a glass factory and was a policeman in Ohio.

From 1909 to 1911, she served as superintendent of nurses and matron at a Red Cross sanitarium and training school in Louisville, Kentucky.

She was in private nursing positions for several years, then in 1916 she moved to Palm Beach, Florida, to help open and run Pine Ridge Hospital.

[3] In 1931 she sued and won a cash award[4] from a hospital in South Carolina after a contract dispute,[5] though the legal process dragged into 1932.

[7] She joined the National Association of Colored Graduate Nurses (NACGN) early in her career.