Calista Meader was born in Dover, Maine on January 8, 1838. As a young girl she attended the Methodist-Episcopal Eastern Conference Seminary, where the seeds were sown for her later deep religious convictions. In fact, Calista mentions this period in her life as the time when she underwent a personal religious conversion.

Calista married Joseph Stover, a shipmaster from Bucksport, Maine, who was 20 years her senior, in 1874. The following year she gave birth to a daughter, Maria, at the age of 37.

Calista Stover was a sensitive woman who appreciated nature and poetry. She was devoted wife and mother. Along with her husband, she belonged to the upper middle class of their day. She supported the temperance movement and followed the political activities of her time.

Between 1878 and 1892 Calista and her children spent a total of 12 years at sea, the only interruption being the birth of her second child, Edward, in 1880. During her first voyage to Java, Calista and her daughter Maria were gone for two years. In the years that followed she and her family traveled around the world three times and made one trip across the Atlantic.