Catherine “Kate” Pickens Upson of Milwaukee, WI, was born in 1851. She entered Wheaton Seminary in 1867 and graduated in 1869. She also studied at the Westfield Normal School and graduated in 1872. Kate taught at the Central High School in Cleveland, OH for eighteen months before marrying Edward P. Clark in 1874. In 1872 she married Edward P. Clark, managing editor of the Springfield Republican. Together they had three sons.

Kate was editor of the magazine Good Cheer (1883) and contributed to Harper’s Monthly, The Congregationalist, The Christian Union, The Epoch, and The New York Evening Post. She also published short stories, poems and books for children. She was a public speaker, lecturing on authors and their works, patriotism, and historical female figures, and was active in the Women’s Suffrage Movement. Kate was one of the first women to serve on Wheaton’s Board of Trustees (1907 - 1935). In 1919, she received Wheaton’s first honorary degree, at her 50th class reunion. She died on February 17, 1935, and was succeeded on Wheaton’s Board of Trustees by her son John Kirkland Clark. Clark Residence Hall and the Clark Room in the Library were named for her in 1960.