BIO: Frederick Hesser, Tillard Pen Pictures, 1911, Blair County, PA

Contributed April 2003 for use in the USGenWeb Archives 
by Judy Banja <jbanja@comcast.net>

Copyright 2003.  All rights reserved.
http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm
http://www.usgwarchives.net/pa/blair/
_________________________________________ 

               Pen Pictures of Friends and Reminiscent Sketches
                               by J. N. Tillard

            Altoona, PA: William F. Gable & Co., Mirror Press, 1911 

                            A Representative Citizen

    FREDERICK HESSER is One of The Veterans of The City's Business Life Who,
                Without Noise or Commotion, Has Achieved Success

ALTOONA has always been a workingman's town, and never at any time in its 
history has there been anything like a leisure class. If the biographies of all 
men who have made up its business and social life were written, the book would 
be a record of continuous, faithful and honest toil. There have been no idlers, 
but in workshop or office, in factory or store, from boyhood to old age, the men 
of this city have earned their bread by the travail of brain or brawn. 
Considering their strenuous lives, quite a number of them have lived out the 
allotted time of man and have reached their three score and ten hale and hearty, 
without much abatement of their natural force and with the capacity still left 
in them to enjoy life's evening in the peace that comes from the consciousness 
of work well done.
  It is only in comparatively recent years that many of these gray-haired 
veterans have been seen on the streets. In the days gone by, the majority, who 
were employed in the railroad shops, kept on the treadmill to the end. From 
force of habit, if for no other reason, they toiled on till the forces of nature 
were completely exhausted and they laid down their burdens only when the Grim 
Reaper swung his sickle and they were gathered in.
  But in these last days the veterans have begun to look forward to a definite 
point where they can cease their labors and spend a little while in a review of 
the past and mingle with their fellows, relieved of the pressing cares of the 
work-a-day life, before they go hence. At first they were not pleased with the 
prospect. They had been so long accustomed to the eternal grind that they came 
to regard it as part of the eternal fitness of things from which there was no 
escape this side the grave, but they are rapidly beginning to take a different 
view of the matter and are welcoming the provision that brings them ease. All of 
which seems to prove that somehow the old world is growing better, and the 
strenuous life will not always rob the cradle and the grave in the pursuit of 
the gospel of work.
  But, aside from those who retired by fixed rule, here and there will be found 
one who has had the grace to quit because he has acquired a competence and feels 
that he can afford to spend a little part of his earthly pilgrimage in pursuits 
other than the making of money; that he has done his share of the world's work 
and can afford to rest on his oars without a sense of having failed in any duty 
that he owes either to himself or others.
  Such a man is Frederick Hesser, whose life work has been identified with the 
growth and development of the city in which he lives. He is not a millionaire 
and has performed no mighty deeds that separate him from his fellows or set him 
upon any pedestal. And, indeed, he is probably the last man who would accept the 
pedestal if it were offered to him.
  It might not be out of place to say just here that it is no part of the 
purpose of these humble sketches to deal in fulsome flattery or insincere 
compliments, but for a moment to turn the spotlight on the virtuous lives of 
plain citizens, in order that their fellows may for a moment consider what the 
complex life of the community owes to the quiet men who go about their daily 
tasks in peace and soberness without thought of attracting attention to 
themselves or their performances.
  Civilization is not carried forward on the high places, but the dead levels. 
It is not the heroes whose flaming deeds light the skies of history who have 
been the mainstay of the world, but the patient toilers in the ranks, and surely 
the proprieties are not outraged if a boquet of appreciation is placed in their 
living hands in lieu of the garlands that may be laid on their tombs or heaped 
over their senseless clay.
  Fred. Hesser came here when a young man and for some time worked as a 
carpenter and foreman for the Pennsylvania Railroad Company. After awhile he 
began to feel that he would like a different vocation and embarked in business 
for himself. For many years he was one of the prominent dry goods merchants of 
the city, and there are many thousands who can testify as to the sterling 
honesty of his methods while so engaged.
  There may have been nothing unusual in his methods, and some of his 
competitors may have been more progressive, but he was reliable and his goods 
were always just what they were represented. It is not intimated that others in 
the same business were not just as straight, but this man stood for himself, and 
from every point of view he was a good citizen. He was honorable and kindly in 
all his dealing with his neighbors, and according to the light that was in him 
discharged every duty that came to his hands with fidelity.
  He was one of the strong factors in the development of the First Methodist 
Episcopal Church, and there was no good work that ever appealed to him in vain. 
His associates always knew just where to find him, and he had that in his 
character that probably counts for more than any other human attribute as 
applied to society, the faculty of dependableness. He was steadfast and enduring 
and never played to the galleries or endeavored to obtain a personal advantage 
by playing upon the passions or prejudices of men.
  In his social life he was kindly and genial. He enjoyed the freedom of the 
woods and was never happier than when, with a few congenial spirits, he could, 
with dog, gun or fishing tackle, hie himself away from the haunts of men to the 
quiet of stream or forest, and spend some time in the sunshine of the open and 
the smiles of his comrades. Those who know him under circumstances of that sort 
will bear strong testimony to his manhood and the respect which he inspired. 
Under these conditions men throw off whatever of artificiality or veneer that 
surround them and are frankly themselves, and sidelights may be had on their 
character that are not visible at other times and in other places.
  About the best tribute that can be paid to any man is to say that those who 
know him best love him best, and the subject of this sketch is that sort of a 
man.

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