author
Katherine M. (Katherine Merritte) Yates
1865–1951
A Canadian-American writer whose books for children mixed imagination, moral purpose, and a warm, conversational tone. She also spent many years in Honolulu, a chapter of her life that shaped some of her later writing and travel work.
1 Audiobook
By the Roadside
by Katherine M. (Katherine Merritte) Yates
About the author
Born in Drumbo, Ontario, in 1865, Katherine Merritte Snyder Yates became known as a writer of children's books, publishing as Katherine M. Yates and under other names as well. Reliable reference sources describe her as a Canadian-American author, and note that much of her work was written for younger readers.
She married Ralph T. Yates in 1889 and later lived in Honolulu from 1910 to 1942. That long stay in Hawaii seems to have been an important part of her life and career, and sources note that she also wrote travel pieces about Hawaii for magazines including National Geographic and Sunset.
Yates died in 1951 in Laguna Beach, California. Today she is remembered chiefly for her early twentieth-century children's books and for a career that connected Canada, the mainland United States, and Hawaii.