JOHN ANTON DOLLINGER

JOHN ANTON DOLLINGER, a traveling salesman residing at Wheaton, is numbered among the early residents of DuPage County, and has made his own may in the world since he was ten years of age. He was born in Baden, Germany, on the 24^th of December, 1845, and is the eldest child of Christopher Dollinger, a native of the same place. His mother died when he was an infant, and when he had arrived at the age of twelve years his father brought the four children to America. The second child, Adelaide, Mrs. George Rieser, resides in Naperville Township, DuPage County. Christopher, Jr., is a resident of Colorado Springs, Colo.; and Margaret, Mrs. Luther, dwells in Fredericksburg, Neb. Christopher Dollinger engaged in farming in Naperville Township, where he died in 1873, aged about sixty years.

From the time of his arrival in America, our subject has been independent of parental aid in supporting or educating himself. He took employment in a hotel and meat-market kept by his maternal uncle, Nicholas Graff, at Dandy, now Glen Ellyn, attending school a portion of the time, and continued in this way until the death of his uncle. He was afterward employed in a general store until 1862, when he entered the military service, as a member of Company I, One Hundred and Fifth Illinois Infantry, in defense of the American Union. This service continued about three years, and involved a participation in many of the most decisive battles of the war. Mr. Dollinger was mustered out at Washington in June, 1865. While in front of Chattanooga, he was excused from duty on account of illness, but refused to leave his comrades, and remained at the front to the finish.

Since 1867 Mr. Dollinger has been in mercantile business, and for some years kept a grocery in Chicago. For the last seventeen years he has traveled in the capacity of salesman, and twelve of those years have been passed in the service of his present employers, Franklin MacVeagh & Co. In 1872 he became a resident of Wheaton, and he is the owner of a handsome brick residence on Wesley Street, near Scott. He takes an active interest in the social affairs of the town, being a prominent member of the Grand Army of the Republic and Knights of Pythias, as well as a genial, magnetic gentleman, whose friends are numbered by his list of acquaintances. He entertains liberal religious views, and is an ardent supporter of the principles of the Republican party.

In 1868 Mr. Dollinger married Miss Emagene C. Wicks, who was born in Carthage, N. Y., and bears in her veins the blood of the principal European settlers of New England and New York – French, English and Dutch. Her parents were Stutley and Ann E. (Strong) Wicks, the former being a son of Stutley Wicks, whose wife’s maiden name was Treadway. Three children complete the family of Mr. and Mrs. Dollinger, namely: Anna W., Charles A. and William.

— Submitted by Sherri Hessick on January 31, 2001.

DISCLAIMER: The submitter is not related to the subject of this biography nor is she related to anyone mentioned in the biography.