IOWA WOMEN’S ARCHIVES
UNIVERSITY OF IOWA LIBRARIES
IOWA CITY, IOWA
ANNA
MOORE CHENEY (1877- 1953)
DIARIES, 1892-1953
2 linear inches
|
ACQUISITION: |
The diaries (donor no. 726) were
donated by Edith Cheney Sears
in 2000. |
|
ACCESS: |
The diaries are open for research. |
|
COPYRIGHT: |
Copyright has been transferred to the University of Iowa. |
|
PROCESSED
BY: |
Doris
Malkmus, 2001. [CheneyAnna.doc] |
Biography
Anna Susan Moore Cheney, diarist, mother,
and minister’s wife, was born August 9, 1877 in Ontario, Canada. Before she was fifteen, her family moved to
Evansville, Wisconsin, where her father George E. Moore was a Free-Will Baptist
minister. On her fifteenth birthday,
she wrote in her first journal entry, “ I have been thinking about writing a
journal for a long time, so I have started this, and I am going to try to keep
it as long as I live.” She continued
her entries at least annually throughout her life, writing on her 76th
birthday, “I have the feeling this may be my last birthday recording. Am not at all well.”
Moore was primarily involved with church and school
activities during her youth. In 1895
she matriculated at the Free-Will Baptist Hillsdale College in Hillsdale,
Michigan. While there, she met Burton
H. Cheney, the son of a Wesleyan Methodist minister. (Wesleyan Methodists had left the Methodist Church in opposition
to its episcopal discipline and anti-abolition stance.) Moore and Cheney married August 1,
1899. After serving a Congregational
church in Coral, Michigan, Burton Cheney attended the Oberlin Theological
Seminary in Oberlin, Ohio, graduating in 1906.
From Oberlin the Cheneys moved to Iowa where Burton
served Congregational churches. Their first daughter, Violet Romola, was born
in Coral, Michigan in 1902. They
adopted a son, Theodore, in 1911, and their daughter Edith was born in 1914 in
Davenport, Iowa. They stayed in
Davenport from 1912 to 1916, then moved to churches in small towns in Illinois
and Wisconsin.
The Cheneys took a break from pastoral duties from
1920 to 1926, moving to a farm near River Falls, Wisconsin. Romola Cheney
attended three years of Normal School at River Falls and taught high school for
two years. She then attended Beloit College,
where she received her degree in 1927 after one year. The adventurous Romola
Cheney went to New Mexico to teach, married there and spent the rest of her
life in New Mexico. Theodore Cheney joined the medical corps of the navy after
three years of high school. Edith Cheney attended a country school and after
high school entered the University of Minnesota where she majored in Public
School Music. She graduated during the
Depression and was fortunate enough to obtain a job at the North Dakota School
for the Blind at Bathgate, North Dakota.
She later taught in Iowa schools and then worked in music with the
Cooperative Extension Service in South Dakota.
During summer schools at Teachers’ College, Columbia University in New
York, she obtained her master’s degree.
Edith Cheney married Francis Sears of Petersburg, North Dakota.
Burton Cheney’s final pastorates were in Iowa. The state superintendent of Congregational
churches in Iowa, at one point in the time of Burton and Anna’s labors there,
wrote a fine commendation of both of them for their faithful, helpful
work. Burton Cheney died in Iowa City,
Iowa in 1944. The widowed Anna Cheney
then lived in Vinton, Iowa, Brookings, South Dakota, and Petersburg, North
Dakota with her daughter Edith until her death in 1953. She was buried beside her husband in the
Welsh cemetery in Iowa City.
Scope and Content Note
The
Anna Susan Moore Cheney diaries date from 1892 to 1953 and measure 2 linear
inches. The collection consists of a
large, bound journal, several loose pages from a schoolgirl diary, and ephemera
and notes inserted into the diary.
Entries from the early years are daily or weekly, including long, rich
narratives about school, church, and her courtship with Burton Cheney. Entries from later years are monthly or
semi-annual. They describe warmly the
development of her first child and less warmly the tasks of a minister’s
wife. Annual entries are thoughtful,
candid, and descriptive, recounting the important events of the year and the
details of recent days. Loose
items—programs, a bank statement, lockets of hair, notes, and the obituary of
Burton Cheney have been collected in a separate folder, identified according to
the page number in which they were found.
Box no. Description
Box 1
Schoolgirl diary
1892
Loose page fragments, undated
Diary, 1895-1953 (1
volume)
Loose items found in
diary, 1897-1952