During the summer of 1938, Nona took a special course under Charles Woodbury in his studio on the rock cliffs near Ogunquit, Maine.  Currently, the Oqunquite Museum of American Art houses select examples of his work and in his exhibition brochure, Michael Culver, then curator, noted that while "Mr. Woodbury was not the first distinguished artist to live and work in the small fishing village of Ogunquit, he was among the most influential."  He continues, "in July 1898, [Mr. Woodbury] opened his Ogunquit Summer School of Drawing and Painting.  Woodbury would teach there for thirty-six summers, enrolling between sixty and one hundred students in a six-weeks course of 'painting and drawing from nature.'  The success of his art school secured Ogunquit's reputation as one of America's preeminent summer art colonies.  Woodbury's school brought many of the most important American artists of the first half of the twentieth-century to visit and work in Ogunquit.  

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Woodbury enjoyed a national reputation as a renowned artist and art educator.  His theories on teaching art, and his influence on other teachers and students who disseminated his educational philosophy throughout American are equally as important as the large body of work he himself produced.  He was demanding and immensely influential teacher who inspired great devotion and admiration from his students.  In addition to careers as artists and educators, many of Woodbury students were also involved in the fields of architecture, crafts, advertising, publishing and museum administration.  Woodbury believe that every student, no matter the degree of talent, could benefit from his drawing and painting courses.