Kathleen M. Fraze, daughter of a steelworker and a maternity ward nurse, was born and raised in Massillon, Ohio. She became infatuated with journalism as a teenager, thanks to her grandmother, Ruth Kane, a longtime city hall reporter who got Fraze her first job as a 16-year-old reporter at the Massillon Evening Independent. Fraze graduated from Bowling Green State University with a bachelor's degree in journalism and worked for nearly 40 years as a reporter and editor at the Beacon Journal in Akron, Ohio. She also taught editing courses at Kent State University.