Anna Mary was well versed in life’s hardships. Born in 1860 as the third of ten children, she left home at the age of twelve to work on a neighboring farm as a hired girl. She labored for her wealthier neighbors for fifteen years before meeting and marrying the love of her life, Thomas.
The newlyweds started a life of their own as tenant farmers in Virginia’s beautiful Shenandoah Valley. The next two decades brought the births of ten children and the deaths of five, thousands of hours of hard work, and eventually a farm of their own back in their home state of New York.
Two more decades brought the death of Anna Mary’s beloved Thomas, and the onset of the Great Depression. Anna Mary bravely and diligently persevered on the farm for several more years before finally retiring—by this time well into her seventies. She moved to Vermont to care for one of her daughters, who was suffering from tuberculosis.
At the suggestion of her daughter, Anna Mary took up embroidery, whiling away the hours by creating beautiful and whimsical embroidered pieces, mostly depicting country farm life. But it wasn’t long before painful arthritis took her hobby away from her. Again, another suggestion—this time from her sister—gave Anna Mary a new creative pursuit: painting. Finding that a paintbrush was much easier to wield with her arthritic hands than a needle, Anna Mary—never keen on being idle—set herself to painting scenes similar to what she’d previously been embroidering.
Her life had been long and hard, with a lot of curveballs. Now in her late seventies, Anna Mary became an artist. An artist who, in her last few decades of life, painted over a thousand paintings—twenty five after her hundredth birthday! The artwork from this remarkable woman, Anna Mary Robertson Moses—known fondly as “Grandma Moses”—is now valued in the millions.
Anna Mary’s path in life took a lot of turns. She lived simply, as a modest, hard-working woman who found richness and beauty in every day life. As author Kristin S. Kaufman put it in her book, Is This Seat Taken? It’s Never Too Late to Find the Right Seat, Anna Mary’s “ability to embrace the grace of everyday beauty and wonder and translate this into her art was her gift to the world.”
In her autobiography, My Life’s History, Anna Mary said,
“I look back on my life like a good day’s work; it was done and I feel satisfied with it. I was happy and contented, I knew nothing better and made the best out of what life offered. And life is what we make it, always has been, always will be.”
Are you making the best out of what life offers you—curveballs and all? Remember, “life is what we make it, always has been, always will be.”
