in Greenwood. As the widow of a traveling preacher, Ann probably advised the women’s group even before she formally joined it. Ann’s participation strengthened the women’s group. She combined unique life experiences no other woman in the group had with some of the same life experiences most had. Her positive introduction to Methodist life happened at an early age, thanks to Rev. Travis. Rev. Olin and Rev. Edwards (note 22) reinforced this experience. Although Ann became a Methodist as an adult, among these Methodist women, she perhaps was the most Methodist. Ann was a preacher’s widow. During her late husband’s work, she saw spiritual sustenance first-hand. She experienced and understood the church from the inside out. Her advice about how to communicate the group’s goals, to whom within the church to communicate them and when to communicate them probably was invaluable. In bringing her experience to bear on behalf of founding a Methodist church in Greenwood, she doubtless was a tireless advocate. Lastly, unlike most members of the women’s group who married young and very young, Ann was age 28 when she married. Also, unlike some in the women’s group she married a man her own age. Like Elizabeth Byrd, Emily Osborn and Eliza Osborn, she probably had had a disabled family member. Also, like Elizabeth Byrd, her children were young when she was widowed. In fact, her children were the youngest of any founders’ children when she was widowed. Having faced this challenge herself, she knew the church could aid women in similar circumstances if it were part of their lives. Ann and Annie probably traveled to Greenwood together and overnighted with founder Louisa Jane (Clinkscales) Merriman. Ann almost certainly knew Louisa and husband L.D. from when they lived in Cokesbury. In Greenwood, Louisa and L.D. lived on the original main street of the village, East Cambridge Avenue today. After founder Mary Ann Dorothy Hodges married and moved to Greenwood, Ann and Annie had another home in which they could overnight because in Cokesbury Ann doubtless knew Mary’s parents and their children including Mary herself. Ann probably lived with her sister in Cokesbury until Eliza died in 1861. 30 Afterward, she moved in with daughter Annie and son-in-law Frank R.
30 1860 U.S. census, Abbeville District, South Carolina, population schedule, Cokesbury, p. 191 (penned), dwelling 1264, family 1238, Anna M. Williams [Turpin] in Eliza Williams household; digital image, Ancestry.com (access through participating libraries : 27
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