One of the most powerful stewardship stories in the Diocese of Huron began in a snowstorm more than two centuries ago.

In January of 1798, twelve-year-old Ann Smith and her ten-year-old sister Mary went into the woods near their family’s farm in Dover Township, west of Chatham, to retrieve the cows. A severe winter storm blew in and the girls became lost. Searchers found them about twenty-four hours later, huddled together behind a fallen log. Mary had died from exposure. Ann survived, but her legs were so badly frostbitten that both were amputated below the knee.

Ann Smith would live another seventy-two years. What she eventually did with that life still bears witness today.

Ann became a woman of deep Christian faith. In 1847, she made an extraordinary provision for the future of the Church. She bequeathed 300 acres of land for the establishment of an Anglican church. She had previously given five acres for a church site and stipulated that the church should be built over the Smith family graves and named St. Thomas for her father, Thomas. Significantly, her vision extended beyond constructing a building: proceeds from the acreage were to provide for the church’s ongoing upkeep and repair.

Ann died in 1870. Five years later, thirty Anglican families helped build St. Thomas Anglican Church. Its cornerstone was laid on October 12, 1875, with Isaac Hellmuth, the second Bishop of Huron, participating.

Something particularly interesting happened at that ceremony. Following the laying of the cornerstone, the community gathered for a picnic, and the story of Ann Smith’s generosity was told to the assembled crowd.

That detail matters because financial stewardship is strengthened not only by generous gifts, but also by the stories of generous people.

When we tell one another why we give, we are doing more than encouraging generosity. We are bearing witness to the presence and activity of God in our lives and to the faith that shapes our response. Ann Smith’s story is especially powerful. The hardships of her early life did not turn her away from God but became part of a life in which faith deepened and discipleship took practical form. Her legacy gift was not simply an act of philanthropy; it was an expression of faith, a tangible way of entrusting what she had received to God’s purposes beyond her own lifetime.

When such stories are told, they invite others to consider how their own experience of God might find expression through generosity.

This is especially true of legacy giving. A legacy gift says, in effect, “What God has entrusted to me can continue serving God’s purposes after I am gone.” Ann Smith could not have known the people who would worship at St. Thomas generations after her death. She simply entrusted part of what she possessed to sustain a future she would never see.

More than 175 years after Ann made her bequest, her gift continues to teach us something about stewardship: what we give can support the mission of the church in our lifetime and beyond, and the story of why we give can inspire others to do the same.