Mary Stilwell Edison
(1855-1884)
BIRTH
September 6, 1855
PLACE
Newark, New Jersey
DEATH
August 9, 1884
PLACE
Menlo Park, New Jersey
FAMILY
HOMES
RELIGIOUS VIEWS
RELIGION NOT DOCUMENTED
DENOMINATION NOT DOCUMENTED
MEMBERSHIPS
AWARDS
Mary Stilwell Edison was the first wife of the inventor Thomas Edison, whom she met while working at one of his companies in Newark, New Jersey, and the mother of three of his children. The couple had three children: Marion, Thomas Jr. and William. Edison nicknamed Marion and Thomas Jr. "Dot" and "Dash," after the Morse code. In 1876 the family moved to Menlo Park, New Jersey, where Edison built his laboratory. Her health declined in the early 1880s.
EARLY LIFE
Mary Stilwell was born on September 6, 1855, in Newark, New Jersey, the daughter of Nicholas Stilwell and Margaret Crane Stilwell. She grew up in Newark, which was then a fast-growing industrial city. As a teenager she found work at the News Reporting Telegraph Company, a firm in Newark in which the young inventor Thomas Edison was involved. Edison noticed her there, and after a short courtship they married on December 25, 1871, when she was sixteen and he was twenty-four.
The couple had three children: Marion, Thomas Jr. and William. Edison nicknamed Marion and Thomas Jr. "Dot" and "Dash," after the Morse code.
In 1876 the family moved to Menlo Park, New Jersey, where Edison built his laboratory. There he developed the phonograph and the incandescent light bulb, while Mary managed the household during his long hours of work.
Her health declined in the early 1880s. She died at Menlo Park on August 9, 1884, at the age of 29. The cause of death was recorded as congestion of the brain.
CAREER
DEATH
Mary Stilwell Edison was the first wife of the inventor Thomas Edison, whom she met while working at one of his companies in Newark, New Jersey, and the mother of three of his children. In 1876 the family moved to Menlo Park, New Jersey, where Edison built his laboratory. Her health declined in the early 1880s. The couple had three children: Marion, Thomas Jr. and William. Edison nicknamed Marion and Thomas Jr. "Dot" and "Dash," after the Morse code. There he developed the phonograph and the incandescent light bulb, while Mary managed the household during his long hours of work. She died at Menlo Park on August 9, 1884, at the age of 29. The cause of death was recorded as congestion of the brain. The available biographical account does not describe a continuous final medical course. It gives no dependable sequence of treatment and last symptoms from which to reconstruct a more detailed bedside narrative.
POPULAR BIOGRAPHIES
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