Gladys Potter's Ancestors: Which Lore? Here's the problem...

Gladys Potter's ancestors were quite good at avoiding my mother, Mary Potter's, efforts to find them through "paper" genealogy.  Gladys' father, Andrew Henry, is little more than a name, since he died at about the same time she was born (1888).  The only evidence he died, rather than absconded, is that Gladys kept the Henry surname.  

Gladys' mother, Alice Olivia Lore Henry Perry, is better documented, and we have her photograph.  Unfortunately, all we know of her parents (Gladys' maternal grandparents) is given on her death certificate, shown below.  Alice's widowed husband, Hank Perry, knows his father-in-law's name, William Lore, but doesn't know his mother-in-law's name or anything else about them.

Alice Perry death certificate, credit: Ancestry.com

My mother always had a candidate for this William Lore, since the family shown below lived in Warren County, Pennsylvania and so might possibly have been correct.  This family lived way out in the woods in Blue Eye in 1860, which is still a very remote and wild place.  The father, "Anthony" is from Canada and his wife Rachel is from from Vermont.  More on them later.  They do list $75 of personal property, so they are not destitute.

1860 Census, Blue Eye, Warren, Pennsylvania.  credit: Ancestry.com

Unfortunately, no William Lore appears with Alice Lore and his family in the census records.  Here, in 1880, Alice Lore (age 9) is living with her mother Eliza Lore and sisters Eunice Lovina, Eveline and Betsy. Next door we find her grandmother,  Eunice Davis.  This is in Waterford, Pennsylvania on the ominous-sounding "Alley No. 1st" .  Eliza Lore lists her status as "Married" (the three tick boxes on the center-left are for single-married-widowed; Eunice Davis is a widow).  Bad times.

1880 Census, Waterford Pennsylvania credit: Ancestry.com

There is no joy in the 1870 census, either, where Eliza Lore (age 23), and daughters Lovina, Eveline and Betsy are living with Eliza's parents, Ezra and Eunice Davis. These seem to be more comfortable circumstances in Corry, Pennsylvania as old Ezra has $100 in personal property.  No sign of William, other than Alice's birth in after this record, in 1871.

1870 Census, Corry Pennsylvania.  credit: Ancestry.com

The 1890 census doesn't exist, as the records burned in a fire in the National Archives in the 1920's, which is a great nuisance for anyone looking for family between 1880 and 1900.

Remembering that Western Pennsylvania in 1870-1880 was experiencing an enormous oil boom, with people flooding in from all over the country, and the creative spelling of names at the time, 

the number of possible Williams Lore/Lord/Laure/Lohr/Lehr/l'Or/Lorre

becomes very great indeed.