Catherine Voris (maiden name: Ashenferder) was born on April 3, 1810, in Pennsylvania to John Ashenferder and Margarite Hobanch. She married Gilbert Voris around 1832, and they had at least three children: James, born around 1840; Agnes, born on December 5, 1844; and Daniel, born around 1848. The family lived in Northumberland County, Pennsylvania, and her husband probably died there around 1850. By 1860, Catherine owned $1,600 of real estate and $400 of personal property, and she helped support her family by taking in several boarders. Her son James enlisted in the Union army in 1861 and reportedly sent some of his pay home to support his mother. James died on December 13, 1862, in the Battle of Fredericksburg, and Catherine secured an $8 monthly pension from the federal government in December 1863. 

 

By 1870, Catherine was living with her daughter Agnes and Agnes’s husband, Francis C. Miller, in Williamsport, Pennsylvania. The Millers moved to Bay City, Michigan, around 1873, and Catherine accompanied them. She died of “old age” there on September 15, 1900.

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