Emma Wildermuth
also known as the 'Small Girl in Rear' of the 1896 family portrait caption
b. 1893-10-03, Marietta, Washington County, Ohio
d. 1958-12-10, Marietta, Washington County, Ohio
Born 3 October 1893 in Marietta, Ohio, the fourth of William Clifford Wildermuth and Flora Schlicher’s nine children. Visible in the c. 1896–1903 family group portrait as the “Small Girl in Rear” — the typed caption singles her out specifically — held high on the shoulder of her grandmother Catharina Boeshar Wildermuth, the matriarch who would be remembered as “grandma Catherina Boeshar” by Emma’s nephew Robert Earl two generations later. The grandmother-holding-granddaughter pose is the central image of the family portrait.
The Marietta life
Of the three William-Clifford-and-Flora children, Emma is the one who stayed in Marietta her whole life. She was born there, lived there, and died there. She died 10 December 1958 at age 65 — outliving both her parents (Flora d. 1919, William Clifford d. 1943) and both her siblings (Charles Daniel d. 1945 Kansas, Margaret Zelma d. 1943 Los Angeles) by years. By the time of her death she was the last surviving child of William Clifford and Flora by more than thirteen years.
Robert Earl Wildermuth — born 1924 in Marietta — would have known her as his Aunt Emma, the older sister of his father Earl Adam. She was 31 when Robert Earl was born and 65 when she died. He grew up with her as a present figure in his Marietta-side family life — almost certainly one of the Wildermuth-sister households Robert Earl’s 1989 memoir referred to when describing his father Earl Adam’s “basket-dinner Sunday visits to a Wildermuth sister’s family” through Robert Earl’s childhood. She died in 1958, the year Robert Earl was on a B-47 at McDill AFB in Tampa.
Her marriage (FAMS @F119@ in the GEDCOM) and any children are queued research.
Source: Dale Eesley / FamilySearch — Emma Wildermuth (9WH5-M91); c. 1896 family group portrait caption card (which specifically identifies her as “Small Girl in Rear”).
