Emma Eldridge (maiden name: Ronaldson) was born around 1840 in Pennsylvania to Archibald and Ellen Ronaldson. Census records describe her father as a “Gentleman,” and the family owned $23,000 of real estate in 1850. They lived in Pottsville, Pennsylvania, until the 1850s, when they moved to Philadelphia. She married Erwin J. Eldridge in St. James Episcopal Church in Philadelphia on November 15, 1860, and they had at least two children: Griffith, born around 1862; and Archibald, born around 1867. They apparently settled in Americus, Georgia, around 1860, and her husband served as a surgeon in the Confederate army. After the war, he worked as a doctor and druggist, and by 1870, they owned $600 of real estate and $5,000 of personal property. She died in Americus around 1878.

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