Mackay's husband deserted the family in around 1902 and she returned to Auckland with the children, where she supported the family by working as a journalist for the
Auckland Weekly News. She later claimed to be the first woman on the staff of the newspaper's publisher Wilson and Horton, who also published the
New Zealand Herald. In 1904 she began to write the social column for the newspaper under the name of "Katrine". In August 1908 she began working as the "lady editor" of
The New Zealand Times in Wellington, for nearly twice the pay, However, she was exhausted by the long hours at the Times and by the stress of paying for her son's school fees. She suffered a nervous breakdown and resigned in November 1909, after which she returned to live in Auckland. During the
First World War she ran a tea kiosk in the suburb of
Parnell. When her estranged husband died in 1919 she left Auckland and moved to Canterbury where her daughter was now living, where she worked as a cook for many years on several sheep stations. She continued to write regularly on a variety of topics, using nearly 20 different pseudonyms, for publications such as
Aussie, the
Otago Witness and
The Sun. Mackay died in Christchurch on 28 March 1944. Her son became a newspaper editor and her daughter became herself a prolific journalist and an author under the name
Mona Tracy. ==References==