O. B. Mahone

Otelia (Butler) Mahone (1835-1911) married William Mahone (1826-1895), a civil engineer involved in railroad construction, in 1855. He became president of the Norfolk and Petersburg Railroad in 1858. During the Civil War Otelia was a nurse and her husband joined the Confederate army and rose to the rank of Major General. After the war William became president of three railroads involved in the reconstruction of the transportation network. These railroads merged to become the Atlantic, Mississippi & Ohio (A, M & O) Railroad. He served as U.S. Senator from Virginia from 1881 to 1887. The couple had 13 children but only three survived to adulthood, one of whom was her mother's namesake, Otelia or Tely, who accompanied her mother traveling through Europe in 1893.