Anna married Arthur R Dibbens in November, 1865 in the island and they started their family with the first five children; three of whom survived and moved with them to America in 1873 where they added three more children to their family. By 1876 they were living in Wichita, and finally settled near Kingman, Kansas by 1900. They found the land they had been looking for along the banks of the Ninnescah River. The family moved into a sodhouse on that land with six children and survived at least one river rising while in the sod house, but it was worth it as they watched their kit home coming toward them on wagons. It had traveled to them by train from halfway across the country; a mail-order house that is still standing over 100 years later. (I hear there is a picture of the kit being delivered somewhere at a local museum but I have yet to find it.) I began this blog back in 2009 with some pictures and stories about that house, which is still a home. (pictures of the home are in my blogs from 2009.)
Anna and Arthur raised their children in the kit home, making several trips back to England. The last trip to England to visit family was in 1919. The picture above was taken during that trip. Anna died, just across the bit of ocean that separates the island with the mainland, in Southsea and was buried in Highland Road Cemetery in Southsea: Plot M, Row 2, Grave 23. Her stone is no longer there. The acid from the bombings that happened over the area during WWII destroyed many of the stones in that cemetery according to the historian who works there. Her stone may be gone but her legacy lives on and... her eyes are my eyes.
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