For four years, she wrote in nearly every department of the paper, her work appearing mostly on the editorial page and in the special sheets of the Saturday edition, and ranging from politics to illustrated city sketches, for which her camera furnished the pictures.

She handled the exchange editor's scissors and did a vast deal of descriptive writing and interviewing.

As a stunt girl reporter, she took passage from Liverpool, England to New York in the steerage of the Cunard Line's RMS Aurania in September, 1888, for the purpose of studying life among the immigrants.

Her resulting article, titled "A Sham Emigrant's Voyage to New York" was published in multiple newspapers, including the Brooklyn Times.

[3] At that time she also wrote the book By-paths in Sicily, which was published after her death but, according to biographers, "could fairly be presented as completed.

[5] She died January 2, 1919, at her home, 131 Westminster Road, Brooklyn, New York,[6] and was survived by her husband, a son, James P. Heaton, a daughter, Mrs. Howard C Root, and two grandchildren.