In February 1885, Catt married newspaper editor Leo Chapman. She remained with her parents on the family farm in Iowa when her husband traveled to California to find a job and a place for them to live. Catt left for California after receiving a telegram that her husband was ill with typhoid fever. While she was en route, Catt learned that her husband died in August 1886. She remained for a while in San Francisco, where she wrote freelance articles and canvassed for newspaper ads, but she returned to Iowa in 1887.