Accepting an invitation from the Thurmans, who had relocated, Frances with her two sons moved to San Francisco in 1946. This was the turning point in her life. She resolved to further her educational objectives, becoming the first black student to receive an advanced degree from Mills College by earning a M.A. in Education. She later went on to receive her Master of Social Work degree from U.C. Berkeley. Frances continued breaking down racial barriers, becoming the first black staff member of the Hidden Villa Ranch Camp in Los Altos, California and one of two first black social workers hired by the San Francisco Public Welfare Department.

While employed as an Assistant Professor in the Graduate school of Social Work at Sacramento State College, she was active in theNational Association of Social Workers (NASW).As chairman of the Action Committee,she led the support of the Cesar Chavez Farm Workers Union in protest and parade and the Mayor of Sacramento and his staff to the Urban Coalition Programs that were being implemented in other cities.

The final challenge in her social work career took place under the aegis of the San Francisco Mental Health Society. Attorney Joseph Williams recruited her for a special project in the black Western Addition area, with a substantial grant for three years. Frances focused on infancy as a critical period in personality development and health. In 1971, the Parent Infant Neighborhood Center (PINC) became a reality. This highly successful project served as the model on the West Coast for the care of infants in group settings from birth to 18 months of age.

Retiring in 1972, Frances focused on her artistry as a painter. Earlier at Mills she had taken a course in Arts and Crafts, and also had studied at the Legion of Fine Arts and the Institute of Fine Arts, now she was ready for more. She attended classes at the University of California Extension Art Department, and finally, studied with Richard Irving Bowman, a fine colorist. Toward the end of the Seventies, Frances met and married Matt Nathaniel Crawford of Berkeley, California, who also was retired, but still highly active in the Credit Union Movement and community affairs.

 Frances' paintings have been shown in over sixty exhibits. One art gallery visitor wrote: “to see the work of an older black woman artist inspires me, as a younger black woman, to carry on with my own work.” Frances has over sixty collectors of her art. She has received official Resolutions from, among others, the State of California, the Cities of Oakland and Berkeley, and the Alameda County Board of Supervisors. She is included in three books: Aging Artfully, Wise Talk Wild Women and Black Women Stirring the Waters. She is also featured in the documentary film Still Kicking. The Prescott-Joseph Center in West Oakland California has dedicated a room to her. The Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture scheduled to open on the National Mall in 2015 will include a portrait of Frances entitled Frances at 103, by artist Carolyn Schlam, as part of its permanent collection. 

 Frances was a hiker, a camper, a traveler, a painter, a poet, a writer, a bowler, a dancer, a consummate Scrabble player, a bridge player, a tennis fan (whenever the Williams sisters were playing), a passionately loyal Giants fan and an unapologetic, starry-eyed Tiger Woods groupie of the first magnitude.  

She passed away peacefully in her 106th year on April 22, 2014 at Sunflower Manor
in San Leandro, California. 

On July 8th, 2014 Frances Dunham Catlett was honored posthumously in the U. S. House of Representative by the Hon. Barbara Lee of California , and said honor is now a part of the Congressional Record of the 113th Congress, Second Session. A plaque of the Congressional Record was presented to the Dunham-Catlett Family.
 

Frances Adrion Taylor Dunham Catlett Crawford, the youngest of ten children, was born in 1908 in Hartford, Connecticut to John O. and Mary A. Taylor.  At an early age she became a voracious reader of children's books. She also displayed a passionate interest in creative dance, which her father, being the co-founding deacon of the Union Baptist Church in Hartford, uncharacteristically sanctioned and encouraged.

She attended Hartford Public High School, a college preparatory school. On graduating, Frances won a four-year college scholarship offered by a prominent black Hartford family to the black student with the highest academic record.

 She chose the University of Chicago. 1926 was still the exciting time of the Harlem Renaissance. Frances threw herself into the mix, taking dance classes, and acting in the Cube Theater production of one-act plays written by black playwrights. She heard many of the prominent black poets and singers. Frances was also a charter member of the Lambda Chapter of the Delta Sigma Theta Sorority at the university.

She met Albert Millard Dunham Jr., a brilliant Philosophy major, when she became roommates with his young sister Katherine Dunham. Frances and Albert married in 1929. They left Chicago for Boston where Albert had a fellowship to pursue graduate studies at Harvard. While there, Frances attended Boston University and received her B.A. in 1930.

 In 1932, they moved to Washington, D.C. where Albert, who received his PhD from The University of Chicago, had joined the faculty at Howard University. Their son, Kaye Lawrence, was born the following year. That same year, Albert suffered a severe mental illness and despite all efforts made for his recovery, Frances finally had to acknowledge that Albert never would be rehabilitated. She obtained a divorce in 1942. Through her friendship with the family of sculptor Elizabeth Catlett, she met and married John Hawkins Catlett. Their son Michael Andrew was born in 1944. John died in 1946. Albert, still institutionalized, passed away in 1949.

 Though Frances struggled with deep depression through the early part of this difficult time, she has written that these years were also some of the richest in her life “...because as a faculty wife, friendships and acquaintances had developed with inspiring black leaders and educators, such as E. Franklin Frazier, Howard and Sue Thurman, Ralph Bunch, Sterling Brown and Leo Hansberry.”