The Quiet Power of Hannah Risby Holdsworth

Hannah M. Risby Holdsworth

Her husband disappeared without a word.
Her children were placed in an orphanage.
She was poor, isolated, and nearly lost to time.
Despite it all, she endured.

This is the true story of Hannah Risby Holdsworth.

Born into Survival

Hannah was born in 1828 in Horsley, Gloucestershire, England, into a family of Methodist nonconformists—people who stood outside the religious mainstream. Her father was a traveling merchant. Her mother, a weaver. By the time she was 13, Hannah was working in a cotton mill. There was no childhood, no luxury, no map forward. Only labor. Only survival [1][2].

When she was in her twenties, she left it all behind. She sailed from Liverpool with her parents and sister. They arrived in New Orleans in 1853, then took a steamboat up the Mississippi River to St. Louis [5].

A Marriage, A Death, A Faith She Never Chose

Her new husband, Edmund Holdsworth, was a fellow English immigrant and a practicing Mormon. Hannah followed him to Utah Territory, where she raised their children on the edge of a religious community she never joined.

In a society where faith granted access to food, housing, and safety, Hannah stayed on the outside. She never converted. She just kept going. She tended to children, hauled water, and endured harsh winters and social exclusion [8].

When Everything Falls Apart

By 1860, the Holdsworths had moved to Illinois. Then back to St. Louis. In July 1863, Edmund appeared on a Union Army draft list. After that, he vanished [11].

No Civil War record.
No pension.
No property transfer.
No obituary.

Just silence.

And suddenly, Hannah was alone with four children.

The Poor House, the Baptism, and the Unthinkable Choice

In January 1864, Hannah’s sons were baptized into the Catholic Church. All were listed as coming from “the Poor House” [12].

She herself would not have been allowed to stay with them. Institutions were segregated by gender. Mothers, unless terminally ill, were turned away.

There is no written explanation from Hannah.

But the context speaks for her. Her husband was gone. Her money was gone. Her options were gone.

So she made the most painful decision a mother can make. She entrusted her children to strangers so they would not starve.

She Fought Her Way Back

Seven months later, Hannah was baptized into the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (RLDS) [14]. It was not the same church her husband had followed. This one was gentler, smaller, and rejected polygamy. It may have felt safer. More familiar. Or simply possible.

By 1868, two of her sons were baptized into the RLDS Church as well [15].

By 1870, all of her children were back home with her [16].

There was no court case. No petition. No newspaper mention. Just a census. It quietly recorded what no record explains.

The Midwife of South St. Louis

In 1873, a small listing in the St. Louis city directory read:

She was no longer just surviving. She had a role. A skill. A reputation.

Midwives were healers, nurses, grief-holders, and the only medical help many working-class women had. For Hannah, it meant visibility. It meant trust. It meant community.

However, in every official record, even in the 1880 United States Census, she listed herself as “single” [18].

Never “widow.”
Never “abandoned.”

Just Hannah.

The Widow Appears

In 1887, something changed. The city directory listed her as:

There was no new evidence. No obituary. No proof of his death.

Just a decision.
Maybe she had waited long enough.
Maybe the silence had lasted too long.
Maybe it was time.

The House on Flyer Avenue

By the 1890s, Hannah was living at 4342 Flyer Avenue in South St. Louis. It was a modest cottage in a working-class neighborhood with German immigrants, Irish families, and rows of brick homes tucked behind picket fences and wash lines.

This house was not a poorhouse. It was not borrowed shelter. It was hers. She likely took in laundry. Delivered babies. Cared for neighbors. The records go quiet. But she never did.

The End, and the Beginning

Hannah Holdsworth died at home on September 21, 1898. Her occupation was recorded as “housewife” [20].

But we know better.

She was a weaver’s daughter.

An immigrant.

A mother who lost her children and found them again.

A midwife.

A woman who stayed when others disappeared.

What She Lived Through

She came to St. Louis by steamboat. She died in the age of electric light.

She witnessed:

• Gas lamps replaced by electric bulbs
  
  
• Streetcars take over muddy roads
  
  
• Bridges span the Mississippi
  
  
• The first flickers of silent film
  
  
• The earliest automobiles rattle past her porch
  
  

She endured war, poverty, abandonment, and obscurity. She never left the people she loved.

We See Her Now

I did not expect to find Hannah.

At first, she was just a name in a directory. A shadow in someone else’s story. The more I searched, the clearer she became. A woman who navigated impossible choices without applause or help—and still built a life.

And something tells me this will not be the last time her name is spoken.

You've glimpsed the surface through Hannah's blog, but the depths remain unexplored. Her complete narrative unveils the hidden chapters, the unspoken truths, and the moments that shaped her path. Dare to delve deeper? Click the button below to uncover the full story.