Ms. Eaton’s early schooling was in the public schools of the Cherokee Nation, and she graduated from the Cherokee Female Seminary in 1887. Her B.A. degree was awarded in 1895 from Drury College (now Drury University) in Missouri, and she received both her M.A. and Ph.D. in history from the University of Chicago. Miss Eaton taught in public schools of the Cherokee Nation, and for a time was a faculty member at the Cherokee Female Seminary in Tahlequah. In 1920 she was elected and served two terms as superintendent of schools of Rogers County, Oklahoma.

Upon retirement she devoted herself to research and writing Cherokee history, including the book John Ross and the Cherokee Indians, published in 1910. Active in the work of the Federated Club and the Eastern Star, she was also a member of the Tulsa Women’s Indian Club. In 1935 frail health brought her return to her old home in Claremore, Oklahoma, where she completed her last work, still unpublished, The History of the Cherokee Indians.