Elizabeth Spengler ¹

  Noted events in her life were:

• Obituary: Berks and Schuylkill Journal, 24 Aug 1878, Reading, Berks County, Pennsylvania, USA. ¹ Reifsnyder, Elisabeth (nee Spengler)
The Mother of Five Generations. 155 living descendants follow a corpse to the grave. On Thursday the funeral of Mrs. Elisabeth Reifsnyder took place in Lower Heidelberg township from the residence of her son-in-law Mr. Beecher, on the Dry Tavern road, about seven miles from this city. The deceased was in the 93rd year of her age, and left the unusual number of 155 living descendants, extending to the fifth generation, who followed her remains to the grave. The deceased was born on the 3rd of March, 1786, in Heidelberg township, this county. She was the daughter of Christian and Maria Elizabeth Spengler, her mother having been a Lambrecht, or Lambert as the name is now written. She was one of ten children - five brothers and five sisters - of whom two sisters, a Mrs. Seitzinger and a Mrs. Kissinger, aged respectively 91 and 88 years, are living. She was baptized by Rev. William Boas, her sponsors having been Christian and Anna Maria Young, and was confirmed in her youth at Hain's Church by the same pastor. On the 4th of January 1809, she was intermarried with George Reifsnyder, with whom she lived in holy wedlock for a period of fifty years, her husband having died nineteen years ago, on the 24th of May 1860. This union was blessed with eight children - one son and seven daughters - of whom five daughters survive. The other living descendants of the deceased are 45 grandchildren, 102 great-grandchildren, and 3 great-great grandchildren, making a total of 155 living descendants. Three years ago the deceased fractured one of her lower limbs, and the fractured portions of bone never united, so that she was unable to move about. Her last illness was of short duration, having resulted from an attack of summer complaint, which terminated in death on the 17th inst. The funeral services were conducted at Hain's Church, near Wernersville, on Thursday morning, when the occasion was improved by Rev. W. F. P. Davis, of this city, by preaching an impressive and appropriate sermon. Before her death she expressed a desire that the bell on Hain's Church, where she had attended services from childhood, should be tolled after her spirit had left the mortal clay, in accordance with the custom of the country. In order to comply with this dying request the Building Committee in Hain's Church had the bell raised upon the new edifice, in course of construction, and the bell was tolled one stroke for each year of the deceased's age.

Elizabeth married George Reifsnyder on 4 Jan 1809. (George Reifsnyder died on 24 May 1860 ¹.)