Stow began to see the school in a more positive light as graduation approached. She wanted to be a teacher but expected her mother and older brother to oppose her aspirations. She taught in her hometown for several school terms in the early 1860s but quit teaching after her marriage in 1862.
Several of Stow's schoolfriends also embarked on teaching careers. Stow's cousin, Julia Stow, briefly taught in Marble Hill, Indiana, while Maggie Brown moved farther away to teach music in Loda, Illinois. Melissa Jackson was a teacher in Lawrenceburg, Indiana, before pursuing better pay near the Ohio River in Boone County, Kentucky, which she describes in the letter.
