[2] As a child, she entered the weaving mills of Nashua, New Hampshire, saving her money from her work to educate herself.

[3] Her father and mother, Isaac Goward (1782–1855) and Abigail Lothrop (1787–1848), were born in Easton, Massachusetts, and removed from there in their early married life to New Hampshire, where they engaged in farming, clearing the new lands and raising stock and wool.

She was the youngest of nine children, her siblings being Isaac, Francis, Sally, Ruel, Watson, Louisa, Jason, and Fidelia.

[4][5] At the age of fourteen, Goward, with an older companion, left home to earn her own living, and engaged herself as a weaver of cloth in a cotton factory in Nashua, New Hampshire.

After the Civil War, she taught her system to many widows, helping them gain the skills to support themselves and their families.

The invention also received the highest award in the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia, in 1876, for its accuracy, simplicity and economy.

In 1878, the Massachusetts Mechanical Association awarded a bronze medal to Stearns for her "Diagram for Cutting Garments, etc.