Poe Family Women - There is no dating or identification for any of the subjects in this photo. However, the striking resemblance to 'Muddy,' as well as to Edgar Poe, to the eldest woman in the photo, also shown as Poe-sy (above), is so remarkable that this woman must have been a very close relation to both Poe and Maria Poe Clemm. The expansive forehead, the size and shape of the nose, the rather large ears, the deep-set eyes and the expressiveness of those eyes are very much like Poe's own. The almost teary expression in her eyes, a look of almost 'saintliness,' is also very noticeable in photographs of Maria Poe Clemm.
This woman seems to be between 60-70 years old here, and with the photo most likely taken between 1860-1880, she most certainly could have been a contemporary of Poe's, not an aunt, but a 'kissing cousin.' Alternatively, as I proposed earlier, this could indeed be a photo of Virginia Poe's half-sister, born c.1812. Both the standing woman and the elderly woman have the classic 'Poe family mouth.' Poe's photographs show his lips as very long and thin. Maria Poe Clemm has the same mouth as Poe, as do both these Poe women. The broad shoulders and somewhat 'masculine' build and features of the standing woman correspond to Maria Clemm's own. So, since the elderly woman is a 'dead ringer' for Maria Clemm, and the standing woman also resembles Maria Clemm, bodily and facially, this would seem to be a family with primarily Poe genetics. Since this photo was found in the stores of the combined families of Henry Herring and Neilson Poe's, these women are clearly, 'Poes,' whether they were named Poe or Herring or were known by other names entirely. One conjecture on this fascinating family portrait is that the elderly woman in the photo is Poe's adored cousin, Mary Estelle Herring Warden, and that the standing woman is her daughter, Ella Warden. The Seated Woman is very closely related to the others, as this is obviously a multi-generational family portrait. It is certainly possible that the two adult women shown here are sisters. However, the seated woman appears considerably younger than the standing woman, and may therefore be her daughter. Then, the portrait would represent four generations of Poe family women, since the woman holding the little girl is most likely the child's mother. Another possibility is that this elderly woman could be Virginia Poe's half-sister and 3 or 4 generations of her descendents. Though the elderly woman bears little resemblance to Virginia Poe, the truth is that Virginia didn't resemble her own mother in the slightest. She and Josephine clearly got their features from the Clemm side of the family, not the Poe side. It is therefore just as likely that this daughter of William Clemm, Jr. took on the features of her Poe mother, Harriet Poe, or even her aunt, Maria Poe Clemm. That the standing woman resembles a Poe far more than a Clemm is understandable because of the frequent intermarriages between the Poe and Clemm families. |