Elizabeth “Lizzie” Emel Maher, 1875-1909

Headstone GPS Coordinates: 

Birth: 16 June 1875, possibly in Carrick Township, Bruce County, Ontario, Canada

Death: 29 April 1909, Seattle, King County, Washington

Relatives in Seabeck Cemetery: Peter Frank Emel, Ruby C. Emel

American Revolutionary War Patriots*: None.

Disclaimer: These lines have not been officially proven by NSDAR standards.

Elizabeth “Lizzie” Emel Maher was born on June 16, 1875, in Canada, likely in Carrick Township, Bruce County, Ontario. She was the eldest daughter of Peter Emel and his first wife, Anna Margaret Stroeder. When Elizabeth was just three years old, her mother died, leaving her and her two younger brothers, Frank and Peter, without their mother’s care.

Following Margaret’s death, Elizabeth’s father moved the young family to Polk County, Minnesota. By 1880, Elizabeth—then five years old—was living on a farm with her father and brothers, along with her Emel uncles André and Joseph and her aunt Barbara. That same year, her father married his second wife, Anna Litsen, adding four more brothers to Elizabeth’s growing family.

Around 1889, when Elizabeth was approximately fourteen years old, the Emel family relocated to Seattle. On May 9, 1895, Elizabeth married Thomas Francis Maher at Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Seattle. In 1896, she gave birth to twin sons, Frank and Charles. Elizabeth and her young family remained in Seattle, while her father and younger siblings later settled in Seabeck.

Elizabeth died on April 29, 1909, at Providence Hospital in Seattle, at the age of thirty-three. The cause of death was recorded as atrophy of the liver. When her father, Peter Emel, died in 1924, he was buried beside Elizabeth in Seabeck Cemetery, and the family placed a large joint headstone to mark their graves.

After Elizabeth’s death, her husband Thomas Francis Maher disappears from known records. Their son Frank was later traced to Dayton, Ohio, where he registered for the World War I draft. He was discharged from military service in 1919, after which the documentary record becomes unclear.

Elizabeth’s other son, Charles, experienced a far more tragic fate. He was admitted to Western State Hospital for the Insane in Steilacoom at the age of sixteen, suffering from what was described as mania. Charles remained institutionalized for the rest of his life and died there on November 26, 1923, at the age of twenty-six. His cause of death was recorded as dementia and exhaustion. He was buried in the hospital cemetery.