Katherine "Kate" Margaret Vaughn (née Brew) was born October 22, 1872, in Hendersonville, Tennessee. Vaughn was a journalist, home economics expert, and social worker. During her time in North Carolina, she served as a cooking school coordinator for the Raleigh-based News and Observer, dietician for the State College of Agriculture and Engineering (now North Carolina State University), and as director of the Bureau of Infant Hygiene within the State Board of Health. She resigned from this latter post in November 1919 and moved to California to pursue a career with the newspaper industry. Vaughn died in Los Angeles on May 20, 1933. She typically went by and signed her name as "Kate Brew Vaughn."