My Genealogy Hound

ELIAS EDWARD ESLINGER, the youngest of the children, and the writer of this family biography, was born June 17, 1871, on the sixth anniversary of his brother’s birth. He is a graduate of the West Fairview high school, and the Harrisburg (Pa.) Business College, class of 1888. For five years he was an accountant in Harrisburg. In 1895 he graduated at the Central State Normal School of Pennsylvania, at Lock Haven, then read law one year, and taught in a business college. On April 1, 1896, he and his brother engaged in the general merchandise business at West Fairview, in which place and business he may still be found.

The members of his family have always lived according to their means, never letting the illogics, “Better be out of the world than out of fashion” and “let every day provide for itself,” lead them into the obnoxious practice of dishonesty and degrading insobriety. They have at no time denied the laws of the land by violating them, nor have they defended themselves for any grievance whatever in any court of justice. They have always found pleasure in not strewing their neighbors’ paths with thorns and in believing that comfort, peace and happiness are intended alike for all, and their hope of the future is seen through the transparency of living for others as well as for themselves, and in making success in life retaliatory and reciprocal.

In the department of politics, the sons have long followed the pennon of a leader in the ranks of the Democratic party, but they at no time have felt obligated to support the ticket, as neither cash nor office magnetized their votes, exercising their right of franchise as non-coerced citizens. By so doing they directed their strength to the welfare of the whole country.

Jacob Eslinger, the father of these children, was of German descent, his father, a native of Germany, immigrating to the United States about the year 1800. He was an ironworker and contractor for the sinking of hand dug wells. He was a soldier in the Civil war and traversed the Dismal Swamps and much of the South, and although he remained a private until his honorable discharge, at Harrisburg, Aug. 3, 1865, he was ever found ready and willing to do a faithful soldier’s part. He is survived by one brother Samuel, Sr., who is nearing the fourscore mark; his other brothers, Levi. Adam, Nicholas, Joseph and John, are deceased; Paulina, his only sister, was married to George Mann, Sr., a farmer, and with her husband has joined “the innumerable caravan which moves to that mysterious realm.”

The mother of this household was Leah Jane (Megonnel) Eslinger. Her brothers, William, a miller, Henry, a farmer, and David, an ironworker, are still living, and her sisters, Susan Yinger and Harriet Witmer, still survive. Elizabeth (deceased) married John Graybill, of Ohio, a public school teacher, whose daughter, Miss Susy Edith Grayl)ill, is a professor in the Massilon (Ohio) public schools. Her father was a native of York county, following farming as an occupation, and he was a man given to charity and hospitality, with malice towards none. Her maternal grandfather served in the war of 1812, and while crossing the Canadian border, enroute to his home in Pennsylvania, illness intercepted him under the soothing silence of a gigantic sycamore, where his journey abruptly came to an end. Mrs. Eslinger inherited her father’s temperament and hence was always found cheerful and obliging. During life she met with many misfortunes, and was for many years on her own physical resources in the support of herself and two families of three small children each, yet she reared them without a father’s care. She died Nov. 22, 1901, in the seventieth year of her age, with the dying words on her lips, “Jesus take me home.”