In her early career, she was not especially interested in the psychology of homosexual people. After teaching for only one year at the Maryland College for Women, she contracted tuberculosis and spent the next year in a sanatorium in Arizona. After her recovery she began teaching at Whittier College in Southern California. Then in 1937 Gentry received a fellowship to the Berlin Institute of Psychotherapy, at which point she left Whittier. Hooker lived with a Jewish family while she studied in Europe. While there, she got a first-hand look at the rise of Adolf Hitler and witnessed such events as the Kristallnacht. She learned later that the Jewish family she lived with was killed in concentration camps. Before returning home, Hooker went on a group tour to Russia, arriving just after a major purge. The events that Hooker would see in Europe ultimately sparked her desire to help overcome social injustice.