The youngest of twelve children, Geneva Grace Stratton was born on 17 August 1863 in Wabash County, Indiana. Her parents, Mark Stratton and Mary Schallenberger Stratton, had been married for almost thirty years, and the infant's eldest sister was twenty-three at the time of her birth. Throughout her childhood the future novelist was allowed to run wild, demonstrating an uncommon affinity for nature. As a result, her father, a practicing Methodist minister, ceremonially bestowed on her all the birds that made their homes on his property. Stratton selected sixty-four nests and surveyed them daily, participating in the process of feeding, raising, and protecting the young birds. As a result, many of them were remarkably content to be held, to eat from her hands, and to follow her about the farm. She trained a blue jay, a special pet that she named Hezekiah, to roll cherries across the floor, and her pet rooster, Bobby, had the run of the house. When the Strattons sold the farm and moved into Wabash, Indiana, in 1874, after the death of her elder brother Leander, Stratton took several birds with her.
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