Person Page - 57

Mrs. Maria Thatcher Horner, descendent of a long line of prominent Campbell County landowners and who celebrated her 94th birthday last September 15th in her home at 19 Auborn Place, Ft. Thomas, died late Wednesday in her residence following a short illness. Interviewed by a Kentucky Times Star reporter on her last birthday, Mrs. Horner, an ardent lifelong Democrat, declared; "Now is the time for the Republicans to put their man in office. I don't think President Truman is big enough for the job." She stressed however, that she was not pledging to vote Republican as she had "made my mark under the donkey since women were permitted to vote."

Mrs. Horner was born in the ancestral homestead, a log and frame building on the extensive original Thatcher property, the daughter of Margaret and John Thatcher. She spent her girlhood there and attended Alexandria elementary school. In 1874 she married the late James Edward Horner, member of a pioneer Lynchburg, Virginia family that settled in what is now Cold Spring.

She was a member of Asbury Methodist Church, which was erected in the early 1800s on a plot of ground donated by her father's grandfather. Land on which the present Courthouse and Baptist Church now stand was a gift of Mrs. Horner's ancestors who came to Alexandria and for whom Alexandria was named. The Thatcher telephone exchange which serves rural Campbell County derived its name from the family.

Surviving are three daughters, Mrs. Homer Smith, Mrs. Margaret Scott, and Miss Bessie Horner, one grandchild, and one great grandchild, all of Ft. Thomas, where Mrs. Horner has resided for the past 40 years.⁸