William Clifford Wildermuth Family Group Portrait, c. 1896

Multi-generation outdoor family-group portrait of the William Clifford Wildermuth family of Marietta, Ohio, c. 1896. Eight figures arranged in two rows against what appears to be a brick wall and back porch, with trees behind. Identified by Chuck Eesley 2026 through a typed caption card held with the photograph in the family archive.

What the caption card says

From left to right:

William Clifford Wildermuth

Flora (Schlicher) Wildermuth

Charles Wildermuth

Margaret Wildermuth

Small Girl in Rear: Emma Wildermuth

Others unknown

Circa 1896

Who’s who, cross-referenced with the GEDCOM

Dale Eesley’s FamilySearch tree gives precise dates that confirm the c. 1896 dating — the ages of the three named children at that date match the photograph:

• William Clifford Wildermuth (b. 17 September 1866 Marietta, d. 10 September 1943 Marietta) — about 30 in the photograph. FS ID LWBF-S4P.
• Flora (Schlicher) Wildermuth (b. 24 August 1870 Marietta, d. 18 November 1919 Marietta) — about 26. FS ID LWBF-S45.
• Charles Daniel Wildermuth (b. 4 February 1889 Marietta, d. 10 October 1945 Kansas) — about 7 in the photograph. FS ID GMLZ-MY4.
• Margaret Zelma Wildermuth (b. 6 November 1891 Marietta, d. 25 October 1943 Los Angeles) — about 5. FS ID GM6P-HNC.
• Emma Wildermuth (b. 3 October 1893 Marietta, d. 10 December 1958 Marietta) — the “small girl in rear,” about 3. FS ID 9WH5-M91.

The five named figures account for the immediate William Clifford family. Per Chuck’s June 2026 reading of the photograph, and the GEDCOM identification of the senior generation:

• The back-row mustachioed man at the left is William Clifford Wildermuth himself — confirmed by Chuck Eesley 2026. He was 30 years old in 1896, photographed beside his wife Flora and the rest of the family. The earlier hypothesis that this figure might have been Johann Michael Wildermuth (the 1847 emigrant) is withdrawn.
• The back-row mustachioed man at the right is Edward Frederick Wildermuth — William Clifford’s younger brother, age 23 in 1896, confirmed by Chuck Eesley 2026. He would live to age 91, dying in Marietta in 1964. (He would not marry until 1918, twenty-two years after this photograph.)
• The young woman standing next to Edward Frederick is Emma Schlicher — Flora’s younger sister, age 22 in 1896 (Edward was 23). She and Edward are roughly the same generation, photographed at the back of the family group as the unmarried-young-adult tier of the gathering. Identified by Chuck Eesley 2026.
• The figure in the back row holding little Emma Wildermuth high on her shoulder is Catharina Boeshar Wildermuth — William Clifford and Edward Frederick’s mother, the wife of Johann Michael Wildermuth the 1847 emigrant. Confirmed by Chuck Eesley 2026. She was born 15 June 1840 in Breitenbach, Pfalz, Bavaria, was about 56 in 1896 (or 59–63 if the photo dates to 1899–1903 per the Arminda Hayes dating revision), and would live another 30+ years before dying in Marietta in 1933. The grandmother holding her three-year-old granddaughter for the family portrait is the documentary frame in which “grandma Catherina Boeshar” — the name Robert Earl was still writing about in his 1989 memoir, almost a century later — would have been a present elder to her grandchildren.
• The seated woman in the light dress at front-row center is Flora Schlicher Wildermuth — William Clifford’s wife and the mother of the children in the photograph. Confirmed by Chuck Eesley 2026. She was 26 in 1896, photographed with her young children at her side in the canonical Victorian young-mother family-portrait pose. She would die at 49 in November 1919; this photograph would be from the earlier and happier part of her life with William Clifford.
• The two small figures seated beside Flora in the front row are her children — almost certainly Charles Daniel Wildermuth (about 7 in 1896) and Margaret Zelma Wildermuth (about 5). Their older sister Mae Clara (b. 1886, would have been about 10) may also be among the back-row figures.
• The remaining unidentified adult figure(s) in the back row are then plausibly Flora’s Schlicher parents (family record @F56@; married 20 January 1861), with her father being Theobald “David” Schlicher. (Johann Michael Wildermuth — Catharina’s husband, the 1847 emigrant — is not thought to be in this photograph, per Chuck’s reading; there is no confirmed image of him.)

The composition is then a three-generation family group: the senior generation (Catharina front-seated, plus the Schlicher grandparents in the back); William Clifford and Flora the parents (William Clifford back-left, Flora behind him); the three young children Charles, Margaret, and Emma.

Why this matters for the family record

If the seated woman IS Catharina (and the seated-grandmother position is the strongest evidence she is), this photograph is the only known visual record of the matriarch Robert Earl spent his 1980s genealogy years trying to research. Robert Earl’s “grandma Catherina Boeshar” memoir reference is no longer just a name — there is very plausibly a face attached. Her 1933 death came when Robert Earl was nine years old, so he would have known her in person; this 1896 portrait would put her at the matriarch position thirty-seven years before her death and shortly before her widowhood (Johann Michael died in 1903).

The companion documentary find — Johann Michael’s 1853 Philadelphia naturalization petition — settles his emigration in his own sworn words; this 1896 portrait, if Catharina is the seated front-row woman, puts a face to the wife who shared the rest of his life.

Why this matters

This photograph is the earliest dated Wildermuth-side family group portrait in the archive, by some margin — predating Robert Earl Wildermuth’s 1924 birth by twenty-eight years. It documents the Schlicher line that Robert Earl was still trying to trace in his 1989 memoir, the same Marietta-Ohio Wildermuth cluster that produced the dream-house at 413 Harmar Street in 1929, and it carries the earliest visible Wildermuth grandparent generation in any family photograph this archive holds.

William Clifford was Robert Earl Wildermuth’s paternal grandfather — confirmed June 2026 against Dale’s tree (his sixth child, Earl Adam, is Robert Earl’s father). That makes the children in this portrait — Charles, Margaret, and Emma — Robert Earl’s aunts and uncle, and Chuck’s great-great-aunts and -uncle on the maternal Wildermuth side. (An earlier reading that had William Clifford as Robert Earl’s great-uncle has been withdrawn.)

Identification: Chuck Eesley, 2026, via the typed caption card. Dates: Dale Eesley / FamilySearch — William Clifford Wildermuth (LWBF-S4P) and parallel records for the three named children. The three “unknown” senior figures: research queued.