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| Sara Louisa Vickers Oberholtzer | ||
Sara Louisa Vickers was born May 20, 1841 in Lionville, the oldest of nine children born to Paxson Vickers and Ann Thomas Lewis Vickers. Her father Paxson, grandfather John and great-grandfather Thomas all manufactured pottery, using clay to make dishes, bowls, cups and other articles necessary for household use. As a reflection of their Quaker beliefs that all people were equal in the sight of God, all four generations – including Sara – were staunchly opposed to slavery. Paxson, John and Thomas all served as “stationmasters” on the Underground Railroad, who hid escaped slaves in their homes until safe passage could be arranged, sometimes transporting them in the large blue wagons used to deliver Vickers pottery. Several of Sara’s later poems refer to difficulties which her father, grandfather and great-grandfather encountered while helping to transport escaped slaves. It was later reported that members of the Vickers family had helped more than a thousand fugitives find freedom in the north. In addition to abolitionist activities, the Vickers’ were known for their skill in public speaking and lecturing. Sara spent her formative years enjoying lively debates and reading newspapers and publications on reform—which, coupled with her family’s compassionate Quaker beliefs, combined to instill in her an ability to speak and write beautifully and persuasively. In a letter to a publisher later in life, Sara mentioned that she had been writing and speaking to the public since before she was “grown up.” As a teenager Sara submitted many of her essays and poems to magazines and newspapers. At the age of fifteen she sent samples of her writing to the poet John Greenleaf Whittier, who encouraged her to nurture her talent. By the age of eighteen Sara had a volume of work ready for publication, and she and Whittier maintained a lifelong correspondence. |
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Sara attended Thomas’ Boarding School in Lionville before moving on to Millersville State Normal School. Upon graduation she had planned to study medicine but was prevented from doing so by serious illness. On January 1, 1862, at the age of twenty, she married John Oberholtzer, a former teacher who operated the local Willowdale Mill (now the Mill at Anselma). They honeymooned in Washington, D.C., a hotbed of activity during those early days of the Civil War. Sara was well versed in current events, and wrote with enthusiasm of seeing the Capitol, the White House, the Smithsonian Institute and many other landmarks. Sara enjoyed being treated to a lavish lifestyle, if only for a short time—in a postscript of a letter home, John wrote, “Fashionable life may do very well for a short time, but I think we would soon get tired of it; once there was nothing new to look at.” While John devoted much of his energy to running the Mill, Sara cared for their two sons, Ellis (b. 1868) and Vickers (b. 1871), and continued to write. Her new surroundings provided abundant inspiration, and her poetry flourished. Two of her six publications, Violet Lee (1873) and Come for Arbutus (1882) include numerous references to the Mill and the Chester County countryside. She maintained a healthy correspondence with poets like Whittier and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and dedicated poems to figures she admired, including Lucretia Mott, Bayard Taylor and Walt Whitman. A set of four poems in Come for Arbutus chronicled her family’s experience in the Underground Railroad: “The Station House,” “The Station Master,” “The Pilot” and “An Instance.” Sara also used poetry to express her emotions about events like James Garfield’s assassination and the sinking of the Ville-de-Harve passenger ship in the 1870s. John R. Sweeney found some of Sara’s poems moving enough that he set them to music, and they became hymns. |
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Two of Sara’s most poignant works are “At the Old Mill” and “Lost Music.” “At the Old Mill” reads like a love poem, using the Mill as a backdrop: Radiant day is slowly fading, Listen to the damsel dancing There is music in the rattle Yes, I love this shaded building, More than all, I love the miller, Of these twilights I would weary “At the Old Mill” |
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The latter poem, “Lost Music” plays upon the same imagery she used during the first work, but the tone is much darker and more nostalgic. Sara penned “Lost Music” after John suffered a debilitating injury while attempting to free the water wheel from ice in February 1871. Published in 1882, she wrote, Clattering, clattering, Clattering, clattering, Only the clattering Clattering, clattering, “Lost Music” |
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Because of his accident, John turned his attention away from milling and set about building his little village into a major commercial center. After hiring men to run the mill, he opened a general store which sold flour, feed, coal, hay and lumber. In 1872 he and a handful of local businessmen and farmers persuaded the Reading Railroad Company to run a spur line through Anselma, which thereafter carried both passengers and freight to and from Philadelphia. In 1886 John sold the Mill to Allen Simmers, and he and Sara moved to Norristown, where he became a successful grain merchant. After moving away from Anselma Sara formed the Norristown chapter of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, an organization which condemned the consumption of alcohol as dangerous and detrimental to society. When Ellis and Vickers traveled to Germany to pursue their individual doctorates, Sara went with them and worked as a travel reporter for the Norristown Herald. She was a widely respected lecturer on subjects ranging from politics to nature, and was asked to write commemorative poems for occasions like Bayard Taylor’s funeral and the Bicentennial of William Penn’s landing. In 1888 Sara discovered the School Savings Bank program, which was designed to educate children about the value of saving their pennies. The School Savings Bank program consumed her energies for the rest of her life, and she abandoned her literary career. In her later years she also fought for women’s suffrage, and was a champion for equal rights for all people. Sara died on February 2, 1930 at the age of 88, and is buried in West Laurel Hill Cemetery in Philadelphia. |
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1730 Conestoga Road, PO Box 42, Chester Springs, PA 19425 THE MILL | THE PEOPLE | THE TECHNOLOGY © 2010 The Mill at Anselma Preservation and Educational Trust, Inc. |
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