Anna was born on August 18, 1913, in Greenville Township, Bureau County, Illinois, the fifth of her parents' eleven children, and the second of only two girls in the family. She was christened on April 19, 1914 at a nearby Swedish-American church. We have a picture of her when she was just an infant, being held by her mother. 
As the family moved from farm to farm, Anna went to the local schools but in addition, as one of the family's daughters, she and her sister did a large amount of work in the house while the older brothers went out to the fields. Since she had six younger brothers, child care was one of her important responsibilities. But there was much more to do in this family of thirteen people. She baked bread every other day to help feed the family, she made cottage cheese to feed the ducks, and she baked pies in the morning, five at a time, and they were gone after lunch. She also did ironing, doing about 35 shirts weekly with an old iron. There was so much work to be done around the house that for a time, during her high school years, she dropped out of school to work around the house. The housework for Anna, her mother and her sister, Alma, was, it seems, overwhelming at times, and she tired of her life at home.
In her teen years she said that what she wanted was to get married, move to town and have store-bought bread and oleo. In later years she once said that she felt she and Alma were slaves to the housework, words which she immediately wanted to take back, as she felt they reflected badly on her parents.
After having dropped out of high school for a while to help with work at home, Anna left home for a year to work for a neighboring farm family. But she then returned to high school and graduated from Bureau Township High School.
She met Vivan Richmond in high school and fell in love with him. They wanted to get married, but to do so, they had to elope. 
On October 7, 1933 they went to Havana, Illinois and got the minister out of a tavern. They didn't tell their families until later, though it is said that her mother correctly suspected what she had done.
After she and Vivan were married, they started life living in a tent along a creek while she cooked for a saw mill crew. She and Vivan later moved to Wyanet and lived, for a while, above a barber shop as Vivan worked as a carpenter. Then they moved to a converted garage apartment at the home of Vivan's parents and Anna took care of Vivan's mother.
Ann worked as a wallpaper hanger for about 15 years and then worked another ten years in a wallpaper store before running her own paint and wallpaper store in Wyanet for a few years.
She and Vivan had three children, Delmar, Bernice and Wanda. Delmar unfortunately drowned while at a Boy Scout summer camp when he was just 13 (the newspaper articles about his death can be found in the genealogy section in Delmar's "Notes" section). Bernice and Wanda both grew up, attended college and married, having a total of three grandchildren for Anna and Vivan.
Vivan became blind in his later years because of a congenital disease, but nevertheless, he and Anna were able to remain at home and care for each other. Despite his blindness, Vivan engaged in woodworking as a hobby and Anna occupied much of her time with knitting and crochet work.
When Vivan died in 1985 of a heart attack, Anna continued to live in their home and was able to care for herself despite a series of small strokes. However, she suffered a major stroke which disabled her and subsequently caused her death on April 28, 1999, in Walnut, Illinois. She was buried in Forrest Hill Cemetery, Wyanet, Illinois.
To learn more about Anna's family, go to her Family Page. To read more about Anna, find her in the Genealogy section of this web site and go to the "Notes" section in her part of the family tree.
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