Though she preferred journalistic work, she carried on her stenographic establishment as it paid better than correspondence or reporting.

While crossing the Isthmus of Panama, he came down with yellow fever and died, at which time the family returned to the East coast.

[5] While studying in a boarding-school, at about thirteen years of age, she wrote and published a good deal of creditable verse that earned her the title of "village poet".

[2] Seymour secured a teaching position in New York City, where she taught until it affected her health, and she was forced to resign.

The editor of one of the periodicals to which she had been contributing offered her a regular position on the staff of a new paper he was starting, which later became well known.

After her health improved, she accepted a position in a New Jersey school, but was forced to give up work soon thereafter.

[5] She reported sermons and lectures for practice; but so retentive was her memory that it is said Seymour could take down a speech verbatim, writing from her recollection of what was said.

At first, tuition was free, but as the expenses and pupils increased[5] she conceived the idea of making it a lucrative business, and was among the pioneers in opening a thoroughly equipped school, where the scholars were not only instructed in short-hand and typewriting, but received at the same time good business training.

[5] Seymour preferred working as a journalist, and, as her other enterprises gained momentum, she started publishing a magazine devoted to the interest of women, The Business Woman's Journal.