She studied at the Peekskill Seminary but had to leave due to poor health, and continued her education with private tutors.

"[1] To help support her family, Tannatt Woods published children's books, novels, travelogues, poems, short stories, and nonfiction articles.

[3] Her children's books include Six Little Rebels (1879), All Around a Rocking-Chair (1879), Dr. Dick (1881), Out and About (1882), The Duncans on Land and Sea (1883), Toots and His Friends (1883), and Twice Two (1883).

She was involved in the founding of the Salem Moral Education Association, later renamed the Woman's Friend Society, an organization which provided an employment bureau, a reading room, and a home for young women.

[4] In 1893, when the Swami Vivekananda traveled to the United States to attend the Parliament of the World's Religions, Tannatt Woods hosted him in her home on North Street, Salem, which she called "Maple Rest.

"[4] Once her children were grown, she frequently gave readings from her own work and lectures on historical subjects.

[1] She married attorney George H. Woods of Minnesota, and moved with him to Minneapolis, where she had her first child and published some of her best-received poems and short stories.