As the years passed, it became obvious to the town of Walhalla that Elizabeth was gifted. After Elizabeth exhausted the coursework at Chicora College in Columbia, South Carolina, her mentor Dr. H. H. Bellamann suggested that she attend a school in New York City run by Frank Damrosch called the Institute of Musical Arts (soon to become the Juilliard School of Music), and that Elizabeth seek a scholarship through an endowment established by Dr. Bellamann’s friend, Augustus Juilliard.
The trustees of Mr. Juilliard's bequest were also impressed. In 1925, Elizabeth became one of the very first "Juilliard Scholarship Recipients." Elizabeth headed for New York City at the age of eighteen. She had nothing but a meager savings account (started in Elizabeth's childhood when her family’s wayward goat struck her - making her mother so angry that she sold the goat and put the money into a trust for Elizabeth). There was another young woman from Walhalla whom she would stay with downtown until she found a boarding house near the IMA.
It was in that boarding house on Claremont Avenue that Elizabeth began her adventures in the growing classical music circles of New York City. During the seven years she was on scholarship, Elizabeth taught piano at the 125th street YMCA, accompanied for a chorus at the Biondi School for the Blind, and taught at the Bronx Music House. She traveled through Canada, teaching and performing. After completing her training at IMA and Juilliard, Elizabeth attended Columbia University for another undergraduate and graduate degree.
Throughout the 1930's, Elizabeth went abroad to study with world-renowned pianist and composer Marcel Ciampi in France. At the end of the summer of 1939, it was time to return to New York City where Elizabeth's musical career continued to flourish. Among many other things, she played for Eleanor Roosevelt at the White House and performed at the Metropolitan Opera House with the great Wagnerian tenor Lauritz Melchior.
She served with great distinction for forty-six years at the New York Institute for the Education of the Blind, many of those years as its Director of Music. The Institute was truly a work of her heart and soul; and many successful students were guided by her expertise, including famous New York City musician, Dr. Valerie Capers. In 1973, she retired from the Institute and in that same year she married Seth Weeks Hoard.
After 1973, Elizabeth continued providing wonderful musical instruction and mentoring at the Bronx House in New York. She had been teaching at the Bronx House for 50 years when the administration of that school began to falter. Characteristically, Elizabeth did not throw up her hands and decide at last to enter a well-deserved retirement. Instead, at the age of 83, she partnered with like-minded and talented musicians to start a new school. It was a tremendous success. By joining forces with a few parents of students at the Bronx House, (among them the current President of the Board of Directors, Richard Janniello) they convinced important politicians that this work must be continued, that music education needed to be affordable and accessible to students in the Bronx regardless of race or religion. Elizabeth went to Valerie Capers to ask if she could help her find a home for our music school. Dr. Capers was chairman of the Department of Music and Art at Bronx Community College at that time, and she was able to make it possible for the Bronx Conservatory of Music to use the campus of BCC and the Department of Music and Art facilities.
In 1991, The Bronx Conservatory of Music incorporated and secured 501(c)(3) status as a non-profit organization. Elizabeth authored the mission statement of the Conservatory: “to provide private music lessons of the highest quality to Bronx children and adults, in their own neighborhoods, at the lowest possible tuition; to thereby make conservatory training accessible to poor, immigrant and minority families, as well as others….to develop audiences for fine music in the Bronx, and to contribute to the music culture of the Bronx.” Elizabeth taught there until she moved to North Carolina in 2000, and continues to serve as Director Emeritus today.