Matilda Toy operated a boarding house during 1887 at 37 Cooper Street, where she lived with her husband, Jacob, an electrician. Their boarders included Bowman Shivers, sergeant-at-arms office (doorkeeper) for the United States Senate; John Willits, a laborer; Amos Homan, a cigar dealer; and Matilda's brother Harry Lounsberry, a tinsmith. Matilda Toy subsequently operated boarding houses at other addresses in the vicinity of the Camden waterfront. Following the death of Jacob Toy c. 1895, Matilda met her second husband, widowed railroad foreman William P. Lewis, when he lived as a boarder in her home at 422 Stevens Street. They married in 1904.