Emma Schlicher
b. 1874-06, Marietta, Washington County, Ohio (presumed — Schlicher family geography)
She was the only sister among the six children of Flora Schlicher Wildermuth’s parents — the Schlicher family of Marietta, Ohio. Her siblings per Dale Eesley’s GEDCOM (family record @F56@): George (b. 8 November 1861), Daniel (b. 8 January 1864), David F (b. 21 February 1866), Edward (b. March 1869), Flora (b. 24 August 1870 — Robert Earl Wildermuth’s paternal grandmother), and Emma herself (b. June 1874, the youngest by four years).
In the 1896 family group portrait
She is the young woman standing next to Edward Frederick Wildermuth in the back row of the c. 1896 William Clifford Wildermuth family group portrait — confirmed by Chuck Eesley 2026. Emma Schlicher was 22 in 1896; Edward Frederick was 23. The unmarried young-adult cousins of the family stood together at the back of the gathering — her older sister Flora’s brother-in-law beside her own future… well, not quite. Edward Frederick would not marry until 1918, and he would marry Arminda Hayes (not Emma), so the back-row pairing in the portrait is two unmarried young adults standing companionably, not a courting couple.
The namesake question for little Emma Wildermuth (b. October 1893) is still open: she may have been named after her aunt Emma Schlicher (b. June 1874) — the woman now identified standing next to Edward in the photograph — or after another Emma in the family.
What’s open
- Whether she married and had children.
- Her death date.
- Whether she was the “Eva Schmidt” the GEDCOM lists at @I145@ — the woman the @F56@ family record names as Flora’s mother. (There’s a confusing GEDCOM artifact where Eva Schmidt is also recorded as Charles Daniel Wildermuth’s wife at @I145@; possibly the same record is reused or there is a transcription tangle in Dale’s tree that future research can untangle.)
She is Chuck’s great-great-grand-aunt on the maternal Wildermuth-Schlicher side.
Sources: Dale Eesley / FamilySearch — the @F56@ family record (Theobald Schlicher + wife and their six children). The c. 1896 William Clifford Wildermuth family group portrait — the young woman holding little Emma Wildermuth.
