Childhood, Education, Early Career
She was born in Arlington, Vermont, and attended Bennington Academy, in Bennington, Vermont. Educated as a schoolteacher, she taught in North Carolina and New Jersey. She started her own school, but had to give the work up during an illness. While recuperating, she applied for a job as a governess for General Lewis Ruffner (1797-1883), a widower who was member of the Virginia General Assembly and community leader in the area which is now Charleston, West Virginia. She married the General in 1843.
Read more about this topic: Viola Ruffner
Famous quotes containing the words early and/or career:
“Long before I wrote stories, I listened for stories. Listening for them is something more acute than listening to them. I suppose it’s an early form of participation in what goes on. Listening children know stories are there. When their elders sit and begin, children are just waiting and hoping for one to come out, like a mouse from its hole.”
—Eudora Welty (b. 1909)
“Clearly, society has a tremendous stake in insisting on a woman’s natural fitness for the career of mother: the alternatives are all too expensive.”
—Ann Oakley (b. 1944)