birds, and trees. Phebe Botsford shared her passionate love of nature with her daughter, Anna, taking her into the nearby woods and fields. Here Anna learned "...the popular names of sixty or more common flowers; she taught her a dozen constellations..."

In 1871, as there was no high school in Otto, Comstock attended the Chamberlain Institute and Female College, one of two seminaries under the direction of the Methodist Church in Randolph,