Anne Bradstreet (1612–1672), the first published poet in English North America, was married to Simon Bradstreet, a prominent citizen in Massachusetts Bay Colony who eventually served as governor from 1679 to 1686. The couple maintained a typical Puritan marriage; Bradstreet had reluctantly followed her husband to North America in 1630 and struggled to accommodate the difficulties of frontier life. Over nineteen years, she had eight children, and the family moved four times as Simon Bradstreet's prospects improved and more land became available for settlement. Later, even when the family had finally settled in Ipswich outside Salem, Simon Bradstreet was often away on colonial business, whether in other Massachusetts towns or in England for months at a time. The way Anne Bradstreet worked out her issues with colonial and Puritan life, both positive and negative, was by writing poetry. Like many Puritans, Bradstreet's father valued her education, and back in England she had read the Greek and Roman classics and poets in several European languages. Thus, despite the time-consuming nature of taking care of her huge family in frontier towns, Anne Bradstreet took what little spare time she had and penned her feelings in verse.