Manuscript Location

Ohio Historical Society, Archives and Library

Place of Origin

United States ➔ Ohio ➔ Plymouth

Date of Composition

1859-1865

Description

This book was compiled by Mary Hofman, of Plymouth, Ohio. Recipes are written from the front of the book, which also includes loose clippings. A daybook, 1862-1865, of household accounts is written from the back of the book, along with sermon notes from 1859.

The author may have been Mary Elizabeth Hofman, who lived from 1802 to 1881. She married John Henry Hofman (1798-1851) in 1820 and had eleven children with him, ten of whom were still living at the time of her death. According to an unattributed obituary posted in Genii, she had lived in Bucyrus, Ohio, a city fairly close to Plymouth, since 1848. Genii records her husband as having died in Plymouth and having been buried in Bucyrus. His imposing grave marker suggests that the family was prosperous.