The Samuel H. Sidlinger, M.D. Family

Samuel H. Sidlinger was born in Stark County, Ohio, on June 23, 1845, to John and Orsilla Weible Sidlinger. John Sidlinger had been born in Bavaria, Germany, and was trained in Germany to the trade of carriage-maker. At the age of eighteen John came to the United States. He was foreman in a machine shop at Massillon, Ohio, for nine years. Then he came to Napoleon, Ohio, where he established a wagon and carriage-making shop. In his later years, he retired to a farm at Liberty Center where he died. John was a fine baritone singer and an expert musician and during the Civil War served as a member of the regimental band of the Fourteenth Regiment, Ohio Volunteer Infantry. He and his wife were the parents of six children: Edward, John, Samuel II, George William, and Ida. All but George and William lived at Hutchinson, Kansas.

Samuel was nine years old when his parents came to Napoleon in 1854. He studied music, starting at the age of ten, and became proficient on the clarinet, cornet, and the violin. When sixteen years old, he served eighteen months as a member of the regimental band of the Fourteenth Ohio Volunteer Infantry. He then enlisted in the hospital corps of the One Hundred and Twenty-Fifth Regiment, Ohio Volunteer Infantry and served until mustered out in June, 1865.

He returned to his home in Napoleon and until about 1874 was a clerk in a drug store. He graduated from the University of Michigan in the spring of 1874 with a degree of Doctor of Medicine. He opened an office at Napoleon and practiced medicine there for six months. That fall he decided to settle in the West.

At Hutchinson, Kansas, he settled in the little village and established a permanent office in 1875. Two years later in 1877 Edward Sidlinger, his brother, came to Hutchinson to take charge of a drug store and in 1882 the two brothers became partners in a drug store of Edward's own.

In 1875 Doctor Sidlinger was appointed local physician for the Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad Company and also for the Missouri Pacific Railroad Company. In 1913 he practically retired from his private practice.

Dr. Sidlinger married Lucinda Welty, daughter of John and Sarah Welty, in June, 1868. They had one child, a daughter, Lila, who married Fred Innes and lived in Oklahoma.

Submitted by Mrs. Lillian French