Bertha Nanelia Siegfried[t] Doughty was born June 27, 1907, in Seattle, Washington, to Nanelia Lou-Vee Bradford and Thornwald Adolphe Arthur Siegfriedt. She was the eldest of five children. Her parents divorced in 1924. Nan attended Queen Anne High School in Seattle. She wrote poetry for the school paper, was a member of the Honor Society, Girls Athletic Association, Girls Club, Latin Club and French Club. Active in sports, Nan ran track and played basketball, baseball, and tennis. She graduated from high school June 13, 1923, in a class of 122 girls and 102 boys.

She moved to Johannesburg, California, with her mother when "the Rand district was booming." They resided there for about one year. Nan attended Stanford University in 1925 "when only 500 women were allowed in the student body." While in attendance at Stanford, Nan contributed poems to the Stanford Literary Magazine. She graduated with her B.A. June 16, 1930.

At the age of 15, Nan was encouraged by an aunt, who was a professional artist, to paint. As an adult she was a member of the Northwestern Printmakers. She made wood cuts of the vanishing customs of the Olympic peninsula. These wood cuts attracted the attention of both artists and historians. She won awards for her etchings and had prints hanging in six museums, in addition to two Seattle galleries that carried her prints.

On June 10, 1944, Nan married William Frank Doughty in Seattle, Washington. Her husband, known as "Doc," was in the Naval Reserves. They had no children. The couple divorced January 3, 1957.

After her divorce Nan Doughty returned to school. She received her M. A. in English from Arizona State University at Tempe in 1963. She sought to continue her graduate studies at Stanford University but was denied admission. A letter signed by John Loftis, acting executive head of the English department, dated July 1, 1959, cited departmental policy that "forbids the admission of candidates who are beyond their mid-thirties" as the reason.

She did her doctoral work at the University of California at Riverside. While there, she initiated and taught courses in English as a second language. She began teaching English at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas in September, 1966. Also, during this time she began to do research on her family's activities in early Nevada mining towns. As a freelance writer she wrote about area history and mining for the Nevadan and the Central Nevada Historical Society's publication Central Nevada's Glorious Past. She taught at UNLV until 1972.

Nan Doughty was a member of the national league of American Pen Women, the Central Nevada Historical Society, Northwestern Printmakers and Phi Beta Kappa. She died in Las Vegas on June 29, 1987, at the age of 80. She was survived by two sisters, Victoria S. Barker of Boulder, Colorado, and Marylou S. Williams of Wallingford, Connecticut.