UPSON COUNTY, GA - BIOS Anna Weaver

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This file was contributed for use in the USGenWeb Archives by:
Mary B. Williams

Printed in June  2001 Upson Historical Society Newsletter

Anna Weaver: One of Upson's Great
Ladies: 1834-1927

By Dr. Mary B. Williams

Anna Weaver (Marianna M. Weaver), Caroline's daughter, was bom in
Clinton, GA, and came to Upson County with her parents and older
sister while still an infant. She moved with her family to the
house on Bethel Street when she was 6 years old, and lived there
for the remainder of her life. She was educated at the Thomaston
Female Academy, where the girls were "instructed from 6 A.M. until
6 P.M. in the 'Geography of the Heavens, Natural Philosophy, Moral
Philosophy, French, Natural History, Botany, Rhetoric, Chemistry,
Intellectual Philosophy, Reading, Spelling, Writing, and Mu sic',
...."   Her musical interests included playing the piano; she was
still buying sheet music until the War disrupted commerce. She
remained in the home, taking care of her parents and the only
surviving child of her sister, until her niece married and her
parents died.

At the age 6f~44 she inherited the house. She proceeded to rum it
into a boarding house, which she ran. For many young people of
today, turning one's home into a boarding house would involve such
a significant loss of privacy that it would be a last resort, but
in those days even the wealthy shared their rooms with siblings
and their homes with aged parents and with single relatives of all
ages;   their expectation of privacy was very different from ours.
Anna's decision seems to have been a clear-sighted decision about
the best way to make a living, and to make an independent life.
According to family tradition, the first thing she did when she
decided to take in boarders was to buy silverware, because, as she
explained, she wanted to have the class of boarders who were used
to eating with silver.

A boarding house was likely to contain single workers (from
bankers and teachers to clerks and mill workers), students whose
homes were too far from school (no school busses in those days!),
young married couples, widows or widowers, etc.   Because Anna's
house was next to the school, she generally had teachers and
students, but the "Mrs. Thompson'" mentioned in the one of the
letters quoted below was probably a widow. Anna's niece, Kate
Weaver, boarded with her while she attended   R.E. Lee Institute
as a student, and later as a teacher; probably other relatives
whose families lived too far from an appropriate school also sent
their sons and daughters to board with Anna. Thus the boarding
house gave Anna the opportunity to be a close part of her extended
family while still remaining independent.

To give you some feeling for her work in running the boarding
house, I will quote from a couple of her letters. From letter to
Kate Weaver, Sept. 10, 1896:

Prof Hayes is a hustler.  He has brought in over twenty boarding
pupils. He came to see me about renting my house when he first
came here, and it was too small as he expected to have a good many
pupils to board with him. I told him I believed I would prefer
tak-ing about 1/2 a dozen school girls to renting. He said he did
not think he could furnish them this term as he had been teaching
so many of the teacher institute meeting [sic] and had not had
time to drum for the school. He had some girls boarding with him
and going to school from Reidsville near Savannah. Prof Hayes has
rented the Herring house and has it filled with boarding pupils.
.... Last week two men fron the country came to see me about rent
ing a part of my house and putting a widow woman in it with about
six of eight girls to go to school. I think that would about have
run me crazy. [These men were probably well-to-do farmers who
lived too far from town for thei daughters to get to school. This
corn ment indicates that she really preferred students who were
old enough to livi on their own, without a "widow woman".]

I am still cooking on my oil stove Still waiting to see more about
what arrangement I may make. May Griffin asked me to use her
stove, and after saw it I would not because it was entirely too
large for me to use. I shall decide in the course of a few week;
about it. I am tired cooking on an oil stove. I don't have room
for but two or three things and crowded at that and it smokes too.
[I assume that Anna had a cook to do much of the cooking for this
boarding house, but this indicates that she did some of it.]

From letter to Kate Weaver, Nov. 3 1896:

Mrs. Thomas got her things movec yesterday [?] and it will take
her the balance of the week to get them in place. [Note that
moving into a board ing house in those days was similar to moving
into an apartment today. You could rent the room furnished or
bring your own furniture. ] - Poor Dollie cried when she told me
good-bye yes terday, and said she never expected to be so
pleasantly situated again while she lived.

I have been so busy getting my house arranged for Mrs. Thomas to
come in have not been to Buddies [her brother Alvah]. He took me
out in the country