A Large Stout Woman—Matilda “Tillie” Wollenweber Davey

This is my third year working on this year-long prompt, hosted by Amy Johnson Crow. I will write each week in one of my two blogs, either Mam-ma’s Southern Family or at My Trails into the Past. I have enjoyed writing about my children’s ancestors in new and exciting ways.

Sometimes, it’s difficult to get a physical description of our ancestors. If men filled out draft registrations or pension applications, we might get some physical descriptions. With a photograph of the person, we might be able to describe their physical appearance. When we can get first-hand accounts of someone’s physical appearance and even some sense of their personality from remembrances that family members write, that is a bonus. Such is the case with Matilda “Tillie” Wollenweber, who married Frederick Henry Davey.[1]

In a letter written from Marie (Davey) Korn to her first cousin, once removed, Ada May (Gorrell) Thomason, is such a description:

“As I remember, the appearance of Aunt Tillie, she had clear complexion with always rosy cheeks and red lips (no artifice in those days), blue eyes and glossy light brown hair, rather chestnut in color, which she brushed back severely to a knot at the nape. I distinctly remember one visit she made mother, when I sat on my mother’s lap and was fascinated by watching the rise and fall of Aunt Tillie’s bosom. . . I only dimly remember Aunt Tillie as a large stout lady whom I much admired because of her Juno development of figure. I think she was just weaning Leon when she died of diphtheria.”[2]

At the time of Tillie’s death on 1 November 1885, Marie was just eight years old.[3] How old would she have been, when sitting on her mother’s lap? Some fifty years later, she is writing of her childhood memories.

Some of her memory is faulty. Tillie died of malarial fever, not diphtheria.[4] It is not surprising that she would not remember that. Perhaps she passed on what had been told to her over the years.

However, this is a lovely description. We get her eye and hair color, how she wore her hair, and the complexion of her face. We also get the sense of her stature from the “rise and fall of her bosom” and her “Juno development of figure.” Was she a large woman or did she project the presence of protectiveness, as the Greek Goddess, Juno? As a child, any adult would appear large.

There are no photos of Tillie. Still, a memory is treasured, as it gives a picture of what she looked like through words.

ClipArt ETC by University of Florida,
https://etc.usf.edu/clipart/

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[1] Clark County, Indiana, Record of Marriages, Bk K, p 372, Fred N Davy to Tillie Wollenweber, 1878; FHL film 1415854.

[2] Letter, Marie Korn to Ada Thomason, 2 Aug 1937, photocopy, Gorrell Family Collection, privately held by Lisa S. Gorrell, [address for private use], Martinez, CA 94553. Photo copy given to George J. Gorrell from his sister, Ada Thomason. Ada’s mother, Matilda Davey was first cousins to Marie, daughter of Thomas N. Davey.

[3] Marie was born 7 Aug 1877. See “Missouri Death Certificates, 1910-1969,” digital Images, Missouri Digital Heritage (http://www.sos.mo.gov : accessed 19 Jul 2011), death certificate, 9032, 1948, Mary Davey Korn; Missouri State Archives, Jefferson City, Missouri.

[4] “Mrs. Tillie Davey,” Jeffersonville (Indiana) Evening-News, 4 Nov 1885, p. 4, col. 3. This article said she died of malarial fever.

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