Hiram Annis lived his entire life in the service of the Methodist Church.  He was born in Nelson, New York, a rural area in Madison County.  His father, James Annis, was a minister with the Methodist-Episcopal Church and Hiram was early converted to the faith.  About 1835, when he was 24, he married 19-year-old Mary Oakley, in Freedom, New York -- another rural community further west.  They made their first home here, Hiram preaching and farming and Mary giving birth to five of their six children.
 
Hiram's youngest brother, Chauncy Annis, left New York in 1844, settling in Oconomowoc, Wisconsin.  His parents joined their youngest son there in the mid-1850s and Hiram brought his family west about that same time.  They did not stay with Chauncy in Wisconsin, however, but continued on into Iowa.  On 16 September 1856, Hiram and Mary Annis purchased a 20 acre parcel of land in Clayton County, just north-east of the town of Edgewood.  Here, Hiram was again active in the local M-E Church, serving as a "local preacher" throughout the 1870s.  He was elected a trustee of the church in 1867 -- a position he held for the next twenty years.
 
Mary Annis died on their farm on her 73rd birthday -- 16 March 1889.  Her husband suffered declining health in his later years, dying at the age of 87 on 4 December 1897.  They are buried in the Edgewood Cemetery, where a stone marker carries their names.