After she graduated from Ottumwa High School, she was hired to teach music in the district.
Her supervisor was Frances Clark, who “learned of my ambition to ‘elevate the stage,’” she wrote in 1925. Clark persuaded Inskeep she didn’t need to go to college at Northwestern since she’d already had so much experience directing choirs and “you get such lovely music” from the children she taught.
From Ottumwa, Inskeep went to Sioux Falls, S.D., where she taught for two years before moving to Cedar Rapids in 1903.
The Sioux Falls newspaper reported Inskeep would be paid $80 a month in her new job, or $15 more than she was earning in Sioux Falls.