[1][2] She graduated from the Lincoln School for Nurses, studied public health at the Teachers College, Columbia University, and worked at a city hospital.

[3][4][5] Three other African American women—Edith Mazie DeVoe, Helen Fredericka Turner, and Eula Lucille Stimley—also became ensigns in the Navy Nurse Corps during the war.

[6][7] While Turner and Stimley left the service by mid-1946, Dailey stayed in the Navy after the war, rising to Lieutenant Junior Grade on April 11, 1948.

She died at Harlem Hospital after a brief illness at the age of 57, survived by her husband, a son named Robert, and daughters Barbara and Magdalene.

[2] Her husband was a motorman who worked for the New York City Transit Authority for thirty-three years before retiring in 1976.