[2] Born in the antebellum atmosphere of Selma, transplanted to the booming time of Anniston in its infancy, grafted by marriage into the crude conditions of Bessemer's early days, a frequent visitor to Mobile and Montgomery, Chapman was well equipped to delineate Alabama characters and scenes, and in her stories she depicted life among the well-to-do American Southern people, her first writings being signed "Katharine Hope" in deference for her father's scruples against a woman's name appearing in print except at her marriage or death.

Her parents were Thomas Holmes and Mary Elizabeth (Glass) Hopkins, the former a native of Danville, Virginia, and later a resident of Anniston, having taken an active interest in that city's progress since its inception in 1880.

Her abolition principles made slaveholding unpleasant for the family and eventually Reuben Hopkins sacrificed his tobacco lands and slaves and moved west, being tendered a public banquet and silver service on his departure.

Chapman's maternal grandparents were Benjamin Alexander and Catharine (Morrison) Glass, who owned and occupied a plantation 6 miles (9.7 km) from Selma, near the Valley Creek Presbyterian church, both belonging to North Carolina families who came to Alabama territory about 1816.

Several character sketches depicting life encountered by Southern housekeepers during the transition period of the African American servant were syndicated in Sunday papers, and also appeared in the Birmingham Advance, a magazine of the New South.

[2] Chapman made her home in Selma, Alabama, where her family retained the land settled by her great-grandfather in the days when sturdy planters moved inland from the Atlantic seaboard.