Background
She was born in Boston, Massachusetts to Nathan Hale and Sarah Preston Everett who had a total of eleven children. Susan"s father, Nathan Hale, nephew and namesake of the patriot hero, was a lawyer and editor/owner of the Boston Daily Advertiser while her mother, also an author, was a sister of Edward Everett, a Unitarian minister and politician.
Education
She was educated privately by tutors until she was 16, and then entered the school of George B. Emerson.
Career
Without any particular teaching, she learned to draw and to paint early in life. Foreign many years, she was a successful teacher in Boston. She started on this occupation when her father became ill and the family income needed to be supplemented.
In 1860, she moved to Brookline with her family.
Her father died there in 1862 and her mother in 1865. On returning from abroad, Susan took rooms at 91 Boylston Street in Boston and continued her teaching.
In 1872, she decided she wanted to get the best training in watercolor she could, and went abroad again and studied art in Paris, France, and Weimar, Germany, for nearly a year. When she returned in 1873, she began giving lessons in watercolors.
She lived and maintained a studio in the Art Club at 64 Boylston Street.
Later she began holding meetings where she read or talked to people. Susan eventually moved most of her things to Matunuck, and began to spend time there regularly during summers. During winters, she traveled.
In earlier years, she had spent winters working in Boston and traveled in the summer.
She continued visiting Boston between her travels abroad and her stays at Matunuck. Hale died at her summer home in Matunuck, Rhode Island in 1910.