Katherine Brown was born in 1839 at Cochecton Centre in Sullivan County, New York. Her father died when Katherine was quite young; she helped her mother run the family farm and raise her three younger sisters. She attended the district school in the country near her home and received some additional training at a private school on the Hudson before she began teaching in the Sullivan County district schools at the age of fifteen, where she taught until the age of nineteen. In September,1859, Miss Brown went to the state of Georgia to teach and study at the Albany Academy. After the battle of Bull Run, Katherine and a cousin, who was also a teacher, decided to return to the North, and they did, by a circicuitious route going from Georgia through Tennessee, Kentucky and Ohio. In September, 1861, Miss Brown began teaching in a public school in Monticello, New York. After a year of teaching, she served as vice-principal of an academy for two years.

After saving sufficient funds to cover her expenses, Miss Brown entered the University Female Institute of Lewisburg in September, 1865. Two years later, in 1867, she graduated from the Institute and was appointed an Instructor at her alma mater. While teaching, she met Andrew B. Larison, M.D., who was attending the college of the University at Lewisburg. Dr. Larison, who had served in the Union Army as a surgeon during the Civil War, came to the college for theological training. Miss Brown and Dr. Larison were married on October 6, 1869 after his graduation from the college. Rev. and Mrs. Larison moved to Ringoes, New Jersey, where Rev. Larison became the pastor of a newly-organized Baptist church in his home town.

In 1870, Rev. Larison and his brother founded the Seminary at Ringoes, a day and boarding school, at which Mrs. Larison taught English Literature and French. On September 25, 1872, Rev. Larison died of tuberculosis, contracted during the war. Mrs. Larison continued to conduct the school until 1882 when, after the death of Principal Jonathan Jones, she was appointed Principal of the Female Institute of the University at Lewisburg. In 1889, Principal Larison was awarded an honorary Master of Arts degree by Bucknell University. She resigned from the principalship in 1897, when this photograph was taken.

After her resignation from the Institute, Mrs. Larison received a federal pension granted her on the basis of her husband's death from a disease contracted during his service in the Civil War. While her siblings were living, Mrs. Larison spent part of the year living with them and part of the year living in Lewisburg. After the deaths of her sisters, she spent the remainder of her years with various friends in Lewisburg. At the time of her death at the age of eighty-six on January 25, 1926, Mrs. Larison was living in the home of Professor William Gundy Owens of the Bucknell faculty.