OBIT: John OLINGER, III, 1943, native of Somerset County, PA File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Meyersdale Library. Transcribed and proofread by: Richard Boyer. Copyright 2008. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/pa/somerset/ ________________________________________________ JOHN OLINGER John Olinger, of Wichita, Kansas, brother of Mrs. C. M. Beachy, of Wichita, and Mrs. H. M. Cook and Miss Kate Olinger of Meyersdale, passed away on Sunday, May 23, in the Battle Creek Sanitarium, where he had been a patient for six months. He was born and reared in Meyersdale, the son of the late Mr. and Mrs. John M. Olinger, and was 75 years old. Relatives here have not yet learned of the funeral arrangements. A more extended obituary will be published later. Meyersdale Republican, May 27, 1943 ---- JOHN OLINGER III The ashes of John Olinger III, of Wichita, Kansas, who died in the Battle Creek (Michigan) Sanitarium, May 23, repose in his native soil. Born and reared in Meyersdale, the son of the late John M. and Sarah (Brubaker) Olinger, and educated in the Meyersdale schools, he passed an examination for appointment to the West Point Military Academy at the age of 18. Receiving the appointment on recommendation of the congressman from the district of which Somerset County was a part at that time, he entered the academy, but resigned after three months' training because he came to the conclusion that an army career would not be agreeable to him. Throughout his life he was a very modest man, shunning ostentation and personal publicity and adulation of all kinds. While still a very young man he went west and started a private bank at Newton, Kansas, then a small boom town on the Santa Fe Railroad. About the same time, his brother-in-law, Cyrus M. Beachy, also of Meyersdale, established a small bank at Wilsey, Kansas, a little prairie town in the corn and wheat belt of north central Kansas. The brothers-in-law both started in the banking business with very little capital, each conducting a one man bank the first few years, the owner acting as his own cashier, bookkeeper, clerk, etc. The town of Newton grew and developed very rapidly, being a junction and division headquarters of the rapidly expanding Santa Fe Railway System. Olinger's bank grew and prospered with the town. The village of Wilsey lagged and appeared to have no bright future, hence Beachy's bank remained a one-man concern. Banker Olinger's business was growing so rapidly that he could no longer attend to all of his business himself, so he invited his brother-in-law, Banker Beachy, to close or sell his bank and come and join him in the Newton bank as an equal partner. Beachy accepted his brother-in-law's proposition and under their joint management they built up a very strong and prosperous bank in Newton. By and by they saw larger business opportunities in the nearby city of Wichita. So they sold their Newton bank and bought a controlling interest in the Steffens Bretch Ice and Ice Cream Corporation of Wichita, one of the biggest manufacturing concerns in the state of Kansas. Mr. Beachy became the president and general manager and Mr. Olinger the secretary of the reorganized corporation which prospered exceedingly and established a number of branch ice, ice cream and dairy plants in Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas. Mr. Olinger retired from his secretarial duties and active participation in the management some years ago, owing to failing health. Mr. Beachy has remained as the chief executive of the big business concern until the present day. Soon after Mr. Olinger's last visit to his native town last fall, he entered the Battle Creek Sanitarium for treatment of serious chronic ailments. His life was prolonged there for six months, but on May 23rd, he passed away at the age of 75 years. It was Mr. Olinger's request that his body be cremated and his ashes be brought to his native town for burial in the Olinger lot in Union Cemetery. His wife who was with him when the end came complied with his wishes, and had the body shipped and accompanied it to Pittsburgh, where she had it cremated. Miss Kate Olinger met her sister-in-law in Pittsburgh upon her arrival there with the remains. After the cremation, Mrs. Olinger accompanied her sister-in- law to Meyersdale with the ashes of her husband for burial privately as he had requested, without any ceremony except a brief committal rite, in accordance with his innate modesty and lifelong avoidance of pomp and ceremony. Rev. DeWitt Miller, pastor of the Meyersdale Church of the Brethren, in which John Olinger III was nurtured and his great-grandfather, John Olinger I, first permanent settler here (in 1776), his grandfather, Jacob Olinger, and his father, John Olinger II, worshipped - conducted the rite that consigned his ashes to mother earth, in the presence only of the bereaved wife and sisters - Mrs. Mary O. Cook and Miss Kate Olinger, and the latter's chauffuer, Allen Miller. The other surviving sister, Mrs. Annie O. Beachy, and her husband were unable to come east for the burial. The widow Olinger returned to her home in Wichita after a very brief stay at the Olinger home here. Mr. and Mrs. Olinger were a childless couple, so there are no immediate relatives to mourn his demise, except his widow and three sisters. Another sister, Miss Emma Olinger, passed away several years ago, and a brother died young many years ago. The male line of the pioneer Olinger family is now extinct. Meyersdale Republican, June 17, 1943