She stayed in journalism for twelve years, where her noted successes were in the line of stories for children, while she likewise made translations from such diverse languages as Scandinavian and Sioux.

She was later adopted by her stepfather, Reverend Elisha Washington Merrill, who for forty years was a successful educator in the Northwest.

Her mother was a grandniece of Sir Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, and her grandmother on the maternal side was second-cousin to "Royal Charlie" of Scotland.

On May 24, 1882 in Spring Valley, Minnesota, Merrill married Dr. Milton Davis and went on to attend the Women's Medical College in Chicago, Illinois.

The venture was not successful, on account of the actions of a partner, and also because the anti-temperance spirit was too strong in Colorado for the prosperity of a paper wholly devoted to that cause.

The 1880 Federal Census lists Merrill's occupation as a school teacher in Denver, Arapahoe County, Colorado.

At the time of the famine in South Dakota, in 1889, she went through nineteen destitute counties in midwinter, visiting the homes of the people, and bringing back to her paper correct accounts of the condition of affairs there.

While in California, she wrote a poem, entitled "The Faro Dealer's Story," which gained for her considerable local fame.