Nora was one of four siblings born in Calhoun County, Georgia, to William Henry and Henrietta Phillips that were each adopted by different families at an early age. Nora and her siblings, Ida, Mamie and Marcus, were able to keep contact with each-other throughout their lives. As a young woman, she moved to New York City where she worked as a secretary and later, a civil servant. In 1926 at Manhattan, she married Leo Hund, another adoptive New Yorker, originally from Minnesota, who was six years her senior and a US Navy veteran of World War I. When she met him, Leo was working for the city railroad, and later was a postal registry clerk at the Manhattan post office.

Initially living in Brooklyn, NY, in 1936 the couple bought a home on Coolidge Ave., in Flushing, Queens County, New York. Nora was fluent in French, which she also taught. She was a well-read and cultured lady. She and Leo maintained a house decorated with art objects, and a library. The couple never had children, but enjoyed entertaining at home for friends and family who were visiting New York City. Following Leo's death at age 59 in 1948 from cancer, Nora remained alone in their home for many years. As a senior citizen, she moved to a nursing home in New York. In her mid- 80's, and enduring the typical physical issues of one that age, she told her niece in South Carolina, whom she had never met but had come to know very well from frequent phone calls over the decades, that she wanted to be "out of that place". Nora's niece flew to New York to bring Nora home to live with her and her family. Nora's last few years were happy and secure, thanks to the kindness of her niece, her husband and their children.