Anna Clifford was born around 1842 in Pennsylvania to Michael and Mary Clifford. Her father was a farmer who owned $2,000 of real estate and $500 of personal property in 1860. She grew up in Lemon, Pennsylvania, and her mother probably died sometime in the 1850s. She married Civil War veteran Somers J. Stark around 1866, and they had at least five children: Matilda, born around 1867; Dana, born around 1869; Clifford, born around 1870; Mary, born around 1873; and Laura, born around 1880.

 

Her husband worked as a farmer in Tunkhannock, Pennsylvania. They moved to Barton, New York, sometime in the 1870s, and her husband worked as a railroad laborer there. By 1900, they were living in Elmira, New York, and four of their children continued to reside in their household. Somers worked as a motorman in Elmira, and he died around 1919. She applied for a widow’s pension soon afterward and eventually secured one.

 

By 1920, she was living in her son Dana’s household in Elmira. According to a local writer, she was an active member of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union and was “an outstanding figure at its meetings. She labored long and faithfully in the cause of prohibition and become one of its best known champions in this part of the state.” She died in Elmira in July 1929 “following a brief illness.”

 

Image: Anna Clifford (Star Gazette, 1 August 1929)

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