Anna 1828-1865

I was born in Ohio, but my family--my father, his brothers and their wives, and my grandfather and grandmother--all moved west to Indiana before I can remember. We Stiles seem to be a family bound tightly by invisible ties, my sister Elizabeth and I being the only ones to leave.

I don’t know now exactly how many acres my family owned, but it was a significant number—enough that each family had to hire help to farm, and each child was promised land upon marriage or majority.

Land—that was all they ever talked about, my family. Sundays at family tables, usually at Grandfather Edward’s. The aunts and Grandmother Mary prepared ample dinners, and afternoons were spent planning discussing which sections to clear, which crops or fruit trees to plant and when to harvest them. Barns and homes were built by our uncles and cousins; births and weddings were celebrated in our homesteads; we were almost a little town all to ourselves.

Elizabeth and I were the only children in my family—a poor showing by my mother and father in the eyes in the rest of the Stiles. And then we both—well, that came later.

We grew up surrounded by cousins, aunts and uncles, and family lands as far as the eye could see. We had no need to leave the land—everything we could want was within reach, and we had each other.

Father took us to town—Winchester—for the first time when I was about nine or ten. We bumped along the roads for what seemed like hours, and arrived in the town square around midday—dusty and hungry and madly curious to see what “town” was like. The sights were overwhelming—the noise of the carriages and wagons, men and women calling to each other, and peddlers and hucksters loudly shouting. Children were running on the grass—it was the Fourth of July and we were going to stay all day. Father told us we would be listening to speeches, eating our dinners on the square with the rest of the family, and watching the first fireworks Winchester had ever hosted. Elizabeth and I were beside ourselves with excitement.

It seems strange now that we had never been to town before, but Elizabeth and I had built a life for ourselves on our farm and had no real need to leave. Mother taught us at home, as we were by far the youngest of the cousins and there was no formal school close enough for us to attend.

Father and Mother were welcomed by many as we found our place on the grass of the square for the day’s events. I remember that it was very warm, but one of the cousins had saved room for us near a large sycamore tree, so we were assured of shade later. Townspeople we had never met kept coming over to speak with Mother and Father, and their names flowed over us both. Elizabeth and I agreed later that we did not remember even one person’s name from the entire day.

We also remembered that this was the first time we had ever met a Friend, or Quaker as many people called them. They spoke with our family members using that funny talk of Thee and Thou, and Elizabeth and I kept looking at each other and trying not to laugh. Mother pulled us over a little later and asked us to be polite, telling us a little about the Quaker religion.

I look back now and see that neighborliness was not the only feeling afloat that day. Father was treated with a feeling akin to respect, or perhaps awe; I am not sure exactly. Stiles land and Stiles relatives were all around us. Land was power and it commanded respect.

I was blessed to have Elizabeth as my sister. We were very close; we learned together from Mother, and then later, when we could drive a wagon, at school three to four months at a time. We wore identical dresses and we looked much the same. And we were dear friends.

We shared one of the most amazing events of our childhood—the night the stars fell. It was when I was about ten or eleven, in the late fall when the nights were becoming cold and crisp. We were just going to bed when Father cried out to us a