Elizabeth Wildermuth (wife of Jacob)

The matron of the c. 1885–1895 family portrait

Elizabeth Wildermuth, wife of Jacob Wildermuth, is the matriarch of a Wildermuth-surname family that does not appear in Dale Eesley’s FamilySearch tree. She sits at front-center of the c. 1885–1895 studio cabinet-card portrait in a long dark high-collared dress with a fitted bodice — the canonical late-Victorian matron’s pose — with her hands folded in her lap and her young son Troy B held between her and her husband.

Her maiden name, birth date, death date, and place of origin are all open. From the photograph she appears to be in her late 40s to early 50s, placing her birth around 1835–1845 — the same generation as Catharina Boeshar Wildermuth (Robert Earl Wildermuth’s actual great-grandmother), born 1840 in Breitenbach, Pfalz. Whether the two women knew each other is open speculation; they were Wildermuth-surname women of the same generation in America, and if the families ever met or corresponded, it would be at the genealogically tantalizing periphery of the broader Wildermuth-in-America network.

The nine children

Per Chuck Eesley’s identification of the family portrait, Elizabeth and Jacob had nine children visible in the photograph: Charles E, John “Leb”, Harry J, Jesse W (the four adult sons in the back row); Maude B, Lucy, Zella M, “Lanessa” Louise (the four adult daughters in the middle row); and Troy B (the small boy between the parents). Whether any further children were born and lived but were absent from this portrait is open.

Source: Family-archived photograph transmitted by Chuck Eesley 2026. See Jacob Wildermuth’s page for the broader cast identification and the open question of this family’s relationship to Robert Earl’s documented Wildermuth line.