Irma Jackson Cayton Wertz was born 8 May 1911 in Brunswick, Georgia to a military family. Her father was a physician and served during World War I. She attended Atlanta and Fisk Universities, and while at school met her future husband Horace R. Cayton. They were married in 1935 in Chicago and would divorce and remarry again before their final divorce during the war.

In 1942, she entered the Women's Auxiliary Army Corps (WAAC) as part of the first Officer Training School for African American Women. Upon completion of her training at Fort Des Moines, Iowa, Wertz was briefly stationed at WAAC Headquarters in Washington, D.C., before being reassigned to Fort Huachuca, Arizona and the Thirty-second WAAC (later, WAC) Post Headquarters Company. While at Fort Huachuca, Wertz fought for better assignments for WACs, who were frequently given assignments unequal to their skills and training. In 1944 she was promoted to Captain and relocated to Fort Lewis, Washington as commander of a WAC unit there. She was discharged upon the end of the war, in 1945.

Wertz met her second husband, William Jackson Wertz, while at Fort Huachuca. They married in 1944, and after the war moved to Mexico City. Under the GI Bill, Wertz returned to school to obtain a second master's degree while her husband studied to be a doctor. Their son Jack was born in 1948. In 1954 the family settled in Detroit, Michigan, where Wertz became an active volunteer. She was president of the Detroit Council of the Parent Teacher Association, served on the board of the Detroit Repertory Theatre, and also volunteered with the Visiting Nurses Association and the Detroit Receiving Hospital Service League. She died on 20 February 2007.