Biographical Sketch of Mrs. Nancy M. McKibben, Greene County, Missouri, 
Center Township

>From "History of Greene County, Missouri," St. Louis: Western
Historical Company, 1883.

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This lady was born at Solon, Cortland County, New York, in the year 
1820.  Her ancestors were Quakers, who came from Europe at an early
day, and were probably in the Penn Colony.  Her parents, Stephen and
Lydia Potter, were natives of Washington County, New York, and they
were born in 1776, and were afterwards married.  They removed as early
as 1800 to Cortland County, and were among the pioneers of that sec-
tion.  Here they made a home and lived in this new country till they 
had reared to majority five sons and six daughters.  The Potters drop-
ped the Quaker religion and became Baptists, being charter members of 
the first church organized in that region, and their latch string al-
ways hung out to the itinerant preacher, the only kind then known
thereabouts.  Educational advantages were limited.  Schools were of the
primitive kind, and as people then raised, spun, wove, and made up
their own clothing material, the time of both boys and girls was deman-
ded largely at home, to the necessary neglect of the schools.  Notwith-
standing these disadvantages, seven of the Potter family became school
teachers, the oldest son finally becoming eminent as a Baptist minister.
Still another son became an eminent physician and medical author.  The
subject of this sketch was the tenth child, and began teaching at the
age of seventeen, and taught her first school in her native town.  For
this labor she received the astounding sum of seventy cents per week,
and "boarded round!"  On becoming more experienced, her salary was act-
ually raised to one dollar per week.  As late as 1845, she taught in 
her native town for the last named price per week. Her higher education
was acquired at the academies of Courtland and Courtlandville (two 
different institutions in the same county) and teaching in the intervals
of her attendance.  She gave up the principalship of the Union Schools
at McGrawville to care for her aged father in his decline, who died in
February, 1849.  After next teaching a select school, she secured a
position in Elmira Female Academy, where she taught and studied two 
terms.  In the summer of 1850, she opened a female seminary in Penn Yan,
but abandoned that enterprise to care for her aged and infirm mother
till her death in 1851.  In the spring of 1851 she began teaching as
the principal of Syracuse Female Seminary, continuing till the winter
of 1852-3.  She entered Oberlin College, Ohio, the following fall, in 
which institution she remained till the fall of 1855, studying Greek
and Latin, while herself teaching the higher English branches.  In Nov-
ember of that year she married Mr. J. T. McKibben, a former student of
Oberlin.  Mrs. McKibben continued teaching in Oberlin till 1864, when
she accompanied her husband on his tour to Iowa and Missouri, finally
locating with him in Greene County (See Biog. of J. T. McKibben.)  Here
her time and attention were taken up in the discharge of duties inci-
dent to the opening of a new farm, in which she took great interest.
Still attached to her former vocation, in 1878, 1880, and 1882, she 
again taught in the intervals of her other duties.  On account, however,
of a partial deafness, she was forced to abandon teaching, and has 
since given close attention to her household duties.  Though still she
visits schools and writes and canvasses for educational journals in her
spare time.  Mrs. McKibben is a member of the Calvary Presbyterian
Church of Springfield, and is a member of the order of Patrons of Hus-
bandry. In early life, at the age of fifteen, she had connected herself
with the Baptist Church.  She took great interest in Sabbath Schools 
and missionary enterprises, organizing such schools, societies and
benevolent institutions, and was often selected to write essays on 
anniversary occasions of missionary societies.  Since joining the P. of
H. she has held important offices in the subordinate and county grange.
She was elected secretary of Springfield district grange in 1878, and
has held that position for five consecutive terms.  In 1880 she was 
chosen lecturer by the last named grange, and also deputy of Greene
County, and was recommissioned for the same in 1881.  In 1879-80, she
was delegate to the State Grange, at each session of which she deliver-
ed the address.  She has delivered many addresses at grange meetings,
picnics, Farmers' alliance meetings, etc., always with a view of bene-
fiting her race.  Want of space forbids the extended mention, together
with quotations from many favorable press comments, that Mrs. McKibben
has received and so justly deserves.  She has studied well the laws of
correct living, and has put her hygienic theories into beneficiary 
practice.  This has made her a woman of great physical endurance and 
mental activity, and it is a remarkable fact that during a life of
forty-five years as student and teacher, she never lost a day on acc-
ount of sickness.  The winter of her sixtieth year, this remarkable
woman taught a school two and a half miles from home, to which she
walked back and forth every day for four months, aggregating a distance
of 400 miles, at the same time doing her own housework, including laun-
dry!  Taken all and all, this lady is one of the most decided characters
in Greene County; and her many labors of love in the cause of human 
elevation, will be remembered here and hereafter.

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