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- Information on this family was kindly contributed by Bridgid Kelly bridgidckelly(at)hotmail.com
Bridgid is in posession of a book put together by her great-grandfather Robert Linn Clare, son of Anna Horr and James Robert Clare. It contains biographies written by him, also letters and photographs and a xerox copy of the journal of Philip Henry Horr. Please contact her for further information.
The following is the biography of Matilda C. Wilhelm written by Robert Linn Clare. (Year unknown)
Matilda C. Wilhelm
She was born in Franklin Furnace, Ohio, one of five children of Jacob and Amanda Melvina Day Wilhelm, on January 19, 1834.
The family moved to Portsmouth, Ohio, living at #9 West Fourth Street. There she met and married Philip H. Hore (later spelled Horr) on September 26, 1856. He was a widower of thirty.
Following her wedding, she moved with her husband to Ironton, Ohio where three of her children were born: William, Harry and Newton. The latter two were identical twins.
They lived in Ironton for four years to 1860, when her husband's health began to fail (tuberculosis) which necessitated their moving to a higher and healthier climate. They went to Zaleski, Ohio where her husband managed a charcoal iron furnace for the next four years. He died there rather suddenly of a lung hemorrhage on February 27, 1864, when only 38 years of age.
Their fourth child, a daughter Anna, (later Anna Hore Clare) was born in Zaleski several months after the father's death.
Mathilda and her four young children then returned to Portsmouth, Ohio to live in her old home with her widowed mother Amanda. Mathilda's stepchild, Catherine, who had been living with her in Zaleski, had to be returned to Portsmouth, Virginia to live again with her Grandmother Walsh.
Mathilda's mother was then operating a boarding house for support and Mathilda helped and at the same time, struggled to give her children a proper education. She lived to see three of them happily married.
She died December 8, 1891 and was buried in the Horr family plot in Greenlawn Cemetery, Portsmouth, Ohio. She was then 58 years of age. Her mother Amanda, survived her by only a few months.
The record of her children is:
William, born about 1857, married Ida Chick, had three children, Charles, William, and Arthur.
Harry, born May 19, 1860, married Nancy B. King of Kentucky, no children. (One died in infancy). He died July 29, 1950.
Newton, born May 19, 1860, married Clara Johnson of Kentucky, one child, Robert Johnson.
Anna, born October 31, 1864, married James Robert Clare, six children.
Mathilda's brother George Wilhelm won the Congressional Medal of Honor during his services in the Civil War, on May 16, 1863.
Her life up to the time of her marriage was that of a normal, happy, although somewhat serious girl. She was married at age 22. Eight years later, at age 30, she was left a widow with four very young children to raise.
In one of her letters written in later life to one Clement Doame, a close friend of her girlhood days, she told him of her family and early death of her husband and stated "I have since remained single, not caring ever to mingle with the world again - I devoted my entire life to bringing up my children."
Her grandchildren knew her as "Tillie-ma" and her mother Amanda Melvina at "Mehi".
Available are her personal album with names of many of her friends in Portsmouth, Ironton and vicinity, two letters in her handwriting and a photograph (tintype) of her a girl of twenty-two.
Cemetery:
http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GSln=Horr&GSiman=1&GScid=41166&GRid=93817858&
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