The header for Miss Olivia Harper’s 1899 marriage announcement read “Wedded to a Marylander.” Olivia’s mother, Mary C. Harper, and her father, storekeeper George W. Harper, were both born in Delaware. But 1880 and 1910 censuses show the Harpers living in Kent County – Maryland, not Delaware, so the announcement title is somewhat curious. Olivia Harper herself was born in 1876, in Maryland. But that’s no matter. Olivia, daughter of a shopkeeper, married William Medders, who would eventually become a merchant himself.
His store became a famous local fixture for nearly 70 years.
