 She served as an editorial assistant in the Office of Experiment Stations from 1898 to 1903; she went on to have a career as a home economics specialist and served as the first full time editor of the "Journal of Home Economics".His granddaughter, Catherine Merriam Atwater, the daughter of his son, Charles, was an author whom married economist John Kenneth Galbraith.Atwater's legacy is acknowledged through the yearly, W.O.