DeLavenna was born in Florence, Italy on 11 August, 1826. Her early life is not well-known, except that she lived for a short while in Skaneateles and Elmira. She attended the New England Female Medical College in Boston MA, graduating in 1860. She then began practicing medicine in Lyons, and for many years she was the only female physician in Wayne County. In the 1867-68 Wayne County Directory, Dr. Burroughs is listed as an "eclectic physician." She was part of the movement within the medical field called Eclecticism. Rather than subscribing to only one discipline of treatment, these physicians preferred to choose from all available types of treatments, I.E. treating patients with herbs as well as using the drugs of the period. Dr. Burroughs practiced in Lyons for nearly 30 years. She died of tuberculosis on 11 September 1894, and is buried in the Lyons Rural Cemetery.