Nancy matthews elliott biography

She mothered seven children, including prolific American inventor, Thomas Edison. She was so true, so sure of me, and I felt I had some one to live for, some one I must not disappoint.

Madeleine edison

As a young woman, Nancy received some formal education, and worked as a teacher. Following the American Revolution, the Elliott family, like other war refugees, fled the newly independent colonies to settle in Ontario, Canada. There, Nancy met Samuel Edison, and they married in Samuel Edison's family was very different from his wife's. The Edison family had remained loyal to the British government during the American Revolution and subsequently fled to Canada several years before the Elliott family.

The young couple started a family, and within a decade, was raising four children: Wallace, William, Harriet, and Carlisle. Politically minded Samuel was active in the unsuccessful Papineau-MacKenzie Rebellion of , and like his father during the American Revolution, was afterwards forced to flee Canada. Samuel later left his family in Canada to prepare a home for them in the United States.

Nancy Edison moved her children to Milan, Ohio, to join Samuel in Now a small coastal town along the shore of Lake Erie in northwest Ohio, Milan during the 19th century was a major port.