Ellen J. Snell was born on February 26, 1839, in Anson, Maine, to Cyrus and Clymena Snell. Her father died of consumption in February 1850. She grew up and attended school in Anson and in Oakland, Maine, and by 1860, she was working as a teacher.

 

She married John Garland on December 29, 1863, and they had at least five children: Walter, born around 1865; Caroline, born around 1867; Albert, born around 1873; Mary, born around 1874; and Frank, born around 1877. They lived in Waterville, Maine, and her husband worked as a farmer. By 1870, they owned $2,500 of real estate and $1,000 of personal property. They moved to Oakland, Maine, in the late 1800s, and her husband died there of heart disease on June 4, 1907.

 

She applied for a widow’s pension later that month and eventually secured one. By 1910, she was living in her daughter Mary’s household in Oakland. A local writer described her as a “great lover of all that was beautiful in life and nature. Her farm home teemed with bright flowers tended by her hand.” Her “walls were adorned by her paintings of these same flowers, hardly less beautiful.” She was a “great reader,” and she occasionally wrote poetry. She died in Waterville on September 14, 1929.

SOURCES