Introduction

Biography

Amelia was the daugh­ter of Mer­ritt Stark­wea­ther and Han­nah Saun­ders, and wife of Ja­cob Flint Stark­wea­ther. At the age of four years she moved with her par­ents to Ber­gen, New York.

She was ed­uc­at­ed at Ca­ry Col­le­gi­ate Se­mi­na­ry, Oak­field, New York (1858 and oth­er years) and was in the 1882 pio­neer class of the Chau­tau­qua Li­ter­ary and Sci­en­tif­ic Cir­cle.

She be­gan teach­ing at age 15, and by 1880, was a school teach­er in Ti­tus­ville, Penn­syl­van­ia. Lat­er she was a trav­el­ing fi­nan­cial agent for a child­ren’s and old peo­ple’s home.

For sev­en years she was su­per­in­tend­ent of a 400-mem­ber Sun­day school in Ti­tus­ville. She served for three years as pre­si­dent of the Home Mis­sion­ary So­ci­ety, and was ac­tive with the Wo­man’s Chris­tian Tem­per­ance Un­ion.

She moved from Ti­tus­ville to be­come su­per­in­ten­dent of the West­ern New York Home for Friend­less Child­ren, and served as a dea­con­ess in the Me­tho­dist Epis­co­pal Church.

Amelia usu­al­ly spent her va­ca­tions in Chau­tau­qua, New York, which was des­cribed as her per­ma­nent home as of 1893. She may have been liv­ing in New Lon­don Coun­ty, Con­nec­ti­cut, in 1920.

Amelia’s first po­em was pub­lished in the Pro­gress­ive Ba­ta­vi­an, and ma­ny po­ems fol­lowed in va­ri­ous pe­ri­od­ic­als.

Works

• Tomtits and Oth­er Bits (D. Lo­throp, 1885)
• Leaves from the Ci­ty Beau­ti­ful, with her hus­band Ja­cob, 1912