Emma A. Smith was born on August 10, 1849, in Slabtown, Pennsylvania, to Perry and Louisa Smith. Her father was a lumberman who owned $1,000 of real estate and $275 of personal property by 1860. She grew up and attended school in Lycoming County, Pennsylvania. She married Wellwood C. Gillespie, and they had at least five children: Margaret, born around 1868; Elizabeth, born around 1870; Emma, born around 1873; Edith, born around 1875; and W. W., born around 1878. They lived in Morris, Pennsylvania, and her husband worked as a farmer and lumberman. Her husband died on October 21, 1882. She applied for a widow’s pension in May 1890 and eventually received one. By 1920, she was living in her daughter Margaret’s household in Richmond, Pennsylvania. She died there of chronic myocarditis on June 23, 1926.  

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