Davison entered Columbia University in 1926 and earned a bachelor's degree in home economics in 1928. Upon completion of her education, she returned to service as a nurse and dietician at several Army hospitals throughout the US. In 1939, she was deployed during World War II to Fort Mills Station Hospital on Corregidor Island in the Philippines. She was promoted to captain in 1941 and placed as chief nurse of the nursing corps of the Philippine Department. Most of the nurses in the Far East Command were serving under Davison with her second-in-command, Josephine Nesbit, at Sternberg Hospital on the south side of Manila Bay. When the Japanese invaded the Philippines, on 8 December 1941, the day after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Davison organized civilian nurses to help with the casualties, sending five Army nurses and fifteen local Filipino nurses to the facility at Fort Stotsenburg. Within a week the Fort, along with other military facilities, was in ruins and the nurses were prepared for evacuation back to Sternberg.