Josephine Line was born in May 1841 in Mauch Chunk, Pennsylvania, to Joseph and Elizabeth Line. Her father was a clerk who owned $2,000 of real estate and $500 of personal property by 1860. She grew up and attended school in Mauch Chunk. She married Thomas H. Ratcliff in the early 1860s, and they had at least four children: William, born around 1863; Samuel, born around 1865; Elizabeth, born around 1867; and Ethel, born around 1880.

 

They lived in White Haven, Pennsylvania, and her husband worked as a freight agent. Her husband died in the early 1890s. She applied for a widow’s pension in January 1894 and eventually secured one. By 1910, she was living in her son William’s household in West Pittston, Pennsylvania. A decade later, she was living in her daughter Ethel’s household in Old Forge, Pennsylvania. She died of “Degeneration of old age” in Pittston on July 2, 1924.

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