Ketcham graduated from Saint Mark's College, Henrietta Academy and Mary B. Allen's school for girls.

At the age of fifteen, Ketcham became a teacher and she married her cousin Augustus Canfield Norton in Grand Rapids on October 2, 1861.

She met with Susan B. Anthony when she lived in Rochester, and developed a lasting friendship with her in the 1890s.

[1] On April 27, 1899, the Women's National Suffrage Association held its annual meeting in Grand Rapids, Michigan, at the urging of Ketcham, the only time that the meeting would be held in Michigan.

A charter member of the Michigan Equal Suffrage Association, she would serve as its president from 1892-1893, and again in 1900.