Anna Moody Flack

Mrs. Anna Moody Flack was born at South Hadly, Massachusetts, July 30, 1830. She was the seventh of ten children of Spencer Moody and Wealthy Montague. Her ancestry was of the early pioneer New England sort. She began teaching school at Northfield at the early age of fifteen years. Later she entered and duly graduated from the famous Holyoke Seminary.

After a few years teaching at Eaton School, New Haven, Connecticut, she came to Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. In 1859 she organized and took charge of the Seminary at that place. In the first four years fifty pupils were enrolled. Soon having outgrown the original quarters, a stock company was formed, and with the proceeds built a $7,000 structure which still stands on the original site. At times the number of pupils reached 150.

From Lake Geneva Seminary she was called into other educational fields. At the time when the University of Wisconsin inaugurated the idea of co-education in that institution, Miss Moody took the first young ladies to Madison and helped them to enter the school as students.

She was called to teach in the 2nd Wisconsin state normal school at Whitewater in 1868 as principal of the preparatory department and later to Platteville Normal, and at Madison, but lastly to the 3rd state normal at Oshkosh where she occupied the position of preceptress for a number of years.

She was married at Lake Geneva, January 26, 1882, to David Lytle Flack. She died October 1, 1909 after sixteen years of widowhood.

Her gracious personality, her wholesome influence and broadly-wise instruction to those students fortunate enough to come within the range of her helpfulness is a rich legacy which they prize beyond any thing else. Very often has the writer heard former pupils of her's, now old men and women, speak of the sterling worth of the influence and instruction received by them from Miss Moody. She was progressive along all sane lines of education and uplift and never lost her sympathy for and interest in the welfare of home, church, and society. She left the indelible impression of her high ideals and character on the lives of many of our citizens and the institutions of learning in this state. Such a woman, in sympathetic touch with all goodness and kindness could not be arrogant or unwomanly. To have known her but slightly was pleasant and profitable, to have known her well was a benediction.

In August of the year 1903, the former pupils of Miss Moody held a reunion at Lake Geneva; the pupils of other days who gathered from many states numbered over 200. Among them were many men and women who have attained prominence in life.

She was not a member of the D.A.R. organization, but embodied so much of the wholesome, commonsense American pioneer spirit that she deserved a place in the archives of the history of American pioneer women.