Greeley-Smith was born in
Chappaqua, New York, to Colonel Nicholas Smith, a New York City lawyer and diplomat, and Ida Lillian Greeley, who died when she was two. Her grandfather was the notable newspaper editor
Horace Greeley and he left his fortune to Greeley-Smith's mother. She worked at
Joseph Pulitzer's papers and developed a distinctive style to her human interest stories and interviews. Nixola Greeley-Smith initially worked in St Louis before being based at
The Evening World in New York. She covered home front activities during World War I and was an advocate and activist for
women's suffrage. When she started writing for
The Tacoma Times in 1913 it was said that her famous grandfather ("Go West Young Man") was now best known as Greeley Smith's grandfather. She worked for the New York World until her death. She married Andrew Watres Ford, a newspaper editor. They had no children and she died following an operation for acute
appendicitis in 1919. She died in a New York hospital and she is buried at
Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn with other members of her family. ==See also==