No one knows how Watkins was hired with no previous professional journalism experience and accounts vary about what she was hired to write about at the Chicago Tribune. She covered crime, courts and funerals, but also health issues, provided style commentary and followed women leading the pacifism movement. She often reported on women inside Cook County Jail. In her final months at the Chicago Tribune, she reviewed movies and a few plays. On Aug. 7, 1924, Watkins’ byline appeared in the Chicago Tribune — twice — for the final time.