She was born in Hoosick Falls, New York and attended Teachers College, Columbia University, from which she graduated in 1896.Her father, Charles Henry Bailey, was a metalurgist, and her mother, Emma Blanchard Bailey, was a math teacher, and social worker.

She contributed to the Ladies' Home Journal and other magazines, and published volumes of stories for children, methods of story telling, methods of teaching children, etc., which include Boys and Girls of Colonial Days (1917); Broad Stripes and Bright Stars (1919); Flint; The Story of a Trail (1922); Friendly Tales (1923), and "The Little Rabbit Who Wanted Red Wings" (1945). She wrote For the Children's Hour (1906) in collaboration. In 1947, her book Miss Hickory won the Newbery Medal.

She married Eben C. Hill, a radiologist. They lived in Temple, New Hampshire.