Hogg had previously suffered from mental health problems. In late 1918, she fell ill, probably from severe depression. She consulted with Dr. Francis Xavier Dercum, a specialist in the treatment of nervous and mental diseases, who treated her for the next three years. She was hospitalized for more than a year, and spent a further three years convalescing, primarily in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. By the summer of 1923 Hogg was fully recovered, but she permanently discarded her dream of being a concert pianist, ostensibly because of weakness after her illness.