Katherine Pope Cheney was born in 1942 in
Hartford, Connecticut. Her parents were George Wells Cheney, Jr., an insurance executive, and Mary Frances Pope, a trained artist. She is descended from the founders of Manchester's
Cheney Brothers Silk Company, brothers
Ward, Rush, and Frank. It became the largest silk mill in the country at the time, and the family opened other textile mills including one for velvet. Chappell is a 1963 graduate of
Oxford School in West Hartford, Connecticut. She attended
Chatham College and
Sarah Lawrence College before she and her husband,
Tom Chappell, moved to
Kennebunk, Maine in 1968 to raise their family. As of 2010, Kate and Tom share a summer home on
Monhegan, Maine. Chappell became the vice president of Tom's of Maine, starting the business jointly with her husband after they developed a
saccharine-free, natural toothpaste for their children. It was the first natural toothpaste to receive the
American Dental Association's seal of acceptance. Her artistic skills were used in overseeing the packaging, advertising and media for the company. She also attended the
Sorbonne and the
University of Southern Maine, where she graduated
summa cum laude in 1983 with an A.B. degree in Communications after an 18-year hiatus from college. In 2006, a controlling 84% stake in Tom's of Maine was purchased by
Colgate-Palmolive for $100 million in 2006. In 2010, Chappell and her husband founded
Ramblers Way, an
organic wool apparel company. The clothing is made from American-raised
Rambouillet sheep wool, silk thread, and vegetable dyes, and spinning, weaving, and knitting is done in East coast states to keep the sourcing local and sustainable. The silk thread used is a reminder of the Cheney mills, which Chappell recalled still functioning in her youth when she would go to the Cheney Hall remnant room with her mother. ==Recognition==