In 1931, she graduated. She also played on the school’s basketball team. A year or two following her graduation she met Walter Williams, her future husband, at church.

After divorcing her first husband, she moved to Durham, North Carolina in 1945, where she made sure that she did not take a job that required her to work on Sunday, as she wanted to be involved in Church. She aspired to be a teacher but did not have the funds to attend college. However, she was home teaching her children, family, and other community children and taught Sunday school classes for most of her life. At some point, she remarried Maynard Ferrell, a delivery man. They first settled into a home in East Durham. The couple had two children: David and Shirley Ferrell. In an interview from 2022 for INDY Week, she revealed how her son and grandson were killed.

At the age of 100, she traveled to Israel, which was the first time she traveled by plane. She visited a lot of famous locations such as the Jordan River and Mt. Sinai. She credits her faith as the secret to living a long life.

At the age of 106, after voting in November 2018.