Her talent for literary composition was inherited from her mother, Mary Benton Keeney (1815-1909), whose ancestors were among the earlier settlers of South Manchester.

When a girl of sixteen, she sent an article upon one of the terrible war years then just ended to Zion's Herald, of Boston, in which it was printed as a leader, and she was engaged by its publisher to write a series of sketches for children.

There, she at once became identified, outside of church work, with local organizations of the Eastern Star, the Woman's Relief Corps, the McAll Mission and the King's Daughters.

[2] In December, 1890, she ceased active participation in the work of the various societies to which she belonged, and became a "shut in" after a fall the winter before resulted in congestion of the spine.

Laying in a hammock during a short lake trip in the summer of 1891, she wrote a romance in the form of a serial, which was published.

In the following year, her daughters, Luia and Ethel, published, The mystic tie, a ceremony for use in eastern star work, on behalf of their mother.