BIO: Alexander Scheeline, 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 

                         The March of a World's Citizen

      ALEXANDER SCHEELINE Has Lived in Many Places and Succeeded in All -
             Broad Minded Enough to Adapt Himself to The Situation

THE most cosmopolitan citizen of the world is the Hebrew. All ages and countries 
are his and his marvellous adaptability to environment and rapidly changing 
conditions render him welcome and make him successful in all climes and fit him 
to be the associate of every nation, kindred, tribe and tongue.
  Ever since that far-back day when Jehovah called the patriarch of Mesopotamia 
to found in the Orient a succession of Shepherd Kings, the Hebrew has been a 
power in the history of the world. His influence, either consciously or 
unconsciously exerted, has been the greatest factor in the moulding of the human 
race. Ever since the day when they followed the Law Giver of Sinai from old 
Egypt to the sea, they have kept stride with every epochal event that has left 
footprints on the sands of time. The journey that was started amid the cries of 
the Egyptian spoiler over the loss of the firstborn has never stopped or stayed. 
Though the nation that was then beginning its life in the march through the 
wilderness, guided by the pillars of cloud and fire, suffered many vicissitudes 
and final dissolution as a government, the Children of Israel are still marching 
on to their ultimate destination somewhere in the reaches of the future.

"To the beat of a million suns far-flung, 
  To the dance of system wild, 
To the dirge of the bells old Time has rung 
  Where the far dead worlds have filed.

"It is march - march - march - with neither halt or pause; 
  God's regulars one by one;
As they doff their plumes to the changeless laws -
  The years that go marching on.

"It is Hail and Salute as they bring our fate
  The wreath or the punitive rod; 
For their swing - in their sov'reign soldier state
  The guards of the Sov'reign God."

  Every nation in all the ages has been compelled to acknowledge, at some time 
or other, either willingly or unwillingly, their indebtedness to, and their 
dependence upon the Hebrew. As a stranger in a strange land, his lot has not 
always been a happy one, and only his marvellous powers of endurance and 
assimilation have prevented his extinction. But he survives and will survive, 
until old Time has rung down the curtain on the final act of the tragedy of 
life, and though their dreams of becoming a separate people may again become an 
accomplished fact, it will apparently only be after they have come to regard all 
lands as their own.
  Of benign countenance and patriarchal mien, there sits these days in his quiet 
Broad Street Home, or mingles with his fellows in his favorite club, a man who 
in his youth was filled with the wanderlust that characterizes his race. Born in 
Dalmessing, Germany, more than three-quarters of a century ago, Alexander 
Scheeline abode in the habitation that his fathers had acquired by blood and 
fire of sacrifice through the middle ages of Europe until the strength of 
manhood was his, and then he turned his face to the setting sun.
  When Altoona was still a little collection of scattered houses and without a 
place on the map, in 1853, Mr. Scheeline looked it over and went on southward 
through Morrison's Cove, until he came to the town of Woodbury, in Bedford 
County; and, attracted by its peaceful surroundings and the richness of the 
fertile country, he settled down to make himself a place. He had all the 
requisites of disposition and business acumen that would court success on any 
spot on the face of the earth, and he succeeded there.
  He made friends and found customers and the new world looked very good to him. 
But the bigness of the great west appealed to his imagination and, after four 
years, he set forth to conquer new worlds. It was a stirring time in the history 
of the country and when he landed in Freeport, Ill., the "Little Giant," Stephen 
A. Douglass, and the namesake of the father of his race, the great Lincoln, were 
engaged in that mighty oratorical contest that was the forerunner of mighty 
occurrences. The atmosphere was charged with the electricity that made men 
restless and ever kept them moving forward toward altitudinous events that were 
everywhere casting their shadows.
  Alexander Scheeline wanted to see all that lay beyond the gates, and for 
several years threaded the trails of the boundless west in the footsteps of the 
Pathfinder, going up and down the trackless wilderness from the Mississippi to 
the Golden Gate, and from the far northwest to the gulf, finally settling in 
Texas. But in 1861, when the fires of rebellion began to sweep over the south, 
and the Lone Star State began to quiver in its throes, he bethought him again of 
the quiet town in the sunlit Cove, and found his way back to Woodbury. But as 
soon as the war was over, and the peace angel spread its wings over the reaches 
of the west, he started for the coast again and for five years spent his time 
between California and Idaho, and again came back to his first love.
  In 1874 he located in Altoona, with the wanderlust pretty well worked out of 
his blood, or else he found the community so much to his liking that he was 
charmed with it, for in any event he has been here ever since. Men who are well 
along in middle life will remember his first clothing store in the Brand House 
Block, where he did business for many years. He changed his location several 
times, but the man never changed. The same cheery tones and genial smiles always 
abided with him, and while he doubtless had the same difficulties to encounter 
and found the same "ups and downs" that fell to the lot of his neighbors, he 
prospered fairly and preserved his manhood without blot or blemish.
  He was always a good citizen and deeply interested in the progress of 
neighborhood affairs, though he seldom obtruded himself in public matters. He 
was never an aspirant for political honors but once, when he became a candidate 
for alderman in the Ninth Ward, and the people of the community probably lost 
more than he did when he was defeated.
  He has now come to the time when the evening shadows grow long, and whatever 
ambitions that were not achieved in the past must remain forever unfulfilled. 
The story of his life has almost been recorded and the angel of time will soon 
write finis to the book. But he has probably but few regrets as he looks back 
over long paths and is now content to sit by the wayside and allow the world's 
currents to flow by his feet. His active march nears its end, where the paths 
lead into peace.

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