To address the high infant and maternal death rates in Florida in the 1920s, she lectured and worked at the state health office.

[1] After graduation, she began working at St. Luke's Hospital as ward supervisor and acting assistant superintendent of nurses.

In 1917, Ely joined the Army nurse Corporation and in May 1917 was placed at the Washington University Base Hospital Unit 21 on the active duty roster.

Upon her return, she entered the Teachers College at Columbia University in New York and undertook a course in Nurse Instruction.

Completing her graduate course, she worked for a year as an instructor of nursing in Chicago[1] and joined the American Red Cross.

She began basic hygiene education, working with the state health officers and community leaders.

The grateful town gave her a car, a house, and a maid, and she soon spread her teaching efforts to nearby areas.

[1] Ely received a Rockefeller Foundation Fellowship in 1933 and used it to attend the Lobenstine School of Midwifery in New York.

[2] Many of her seminars were presented to minority groups, as the southern segregation policies created a lack of access to other education as well as adequate health services.