Her father was well-read and opened a successful marble works, thus, following her graduation from Quincy High School, was able to send his daughter to George Barrell Emerson's Private School in Boston from 1859 to 1861 and Academy of the Sacred Heart in Manhattanville, New York from 1861 to 1863 to study music and modern languages.
She worked as a schoolteacher prior to her June 1865 marriage to Dr. John G. Blake, a graduate of Harvard Medical School who had admired her published poems before they met in person.
She wrote poetry to commemorate Boston memorials and events, including the deaths of abolitionist Wendell Phillips and Admiral David Dixon Porter, the Silver Jubilee of Archbishop John Joseph Williams, and the 150th anniversary of the Charitable Irish Society of Boston.
Her poem The Ballad of Elizabeth Zane and Isabella of Castille (1890) conveys appreciation for spirited, independent women.
[citation needed] Blake actively participated in the American Peace Society that influenced her work life and her poems.