George was the eldest son of Gilbert Romberger and Mary Sophia Kiehl/Keihl Romberger. He was elder brother to my great grandpa, Daniel H. Romberger.

He was husband of Anna Laura Miller, daughter of distinguished civil war veteran Major J. Frank Miller, and father of 13 children.

George worked as an attorney and life insurance agent. After his father died, George's family had George's littlest brother, Ralph living with them. George appears in the commercial 1894 Polk Greater Harrisburg directory in Elizabethville as offering insurance.

George had been on my "most wanted" list for years. His date of death had been approximate to me for a long time, as he disappears between the 1910 and 1920 censuses. I knew from my own research that his wife joined a church in Harrisburg, Memorial Lutheran, alone about that time as well. Not having access to every year, the last reference I could find for him was in a Polk Directory of Greater Harrisburg, published 1912, possibly with information from 1911, listing "Romberger George D., ins sol, h 2043 N 5th." It appears he was in the 1892 edition, and was definitely in the 1907 to 1911 editions. Then he was gone sometime thereafter.

George appears to have been very active business-wise and was perhaps socially prominent in his day, and probably did well for himself. Still, I could find neither hide nor hair of what became of him. I located some of his descendants and they had no clue. I was unable to get to Harrisburg to review obituaries, and online archives did not turn it up. My suspicion is that the Harrisburg Telegraph may have it, and as they are long out of business, their archives are not online. The reason they would likely have published it is because of George's connection to the McAlarneys who ran that newspaper. George studied law under J. C. McAlarney, the brother of that paper's editor, M. W. and there was also some marriage between the families.

If George's death info shows up anywhere else on the internet it will definitely be from this memorial because no one else has it. You're welcome to it, credit to FindAGrave is appreciated if you use it. No genealogical site or person had it online because there was no obit published. But I got lucky...

A family reunion acquaintance happens to work where there are old death certificates, and she kindly took the time to look for George's. She handed a copy to me at the 2010 Romberger All Family Reunion. It was stunning. Now we know that George died of a paralytic stroke at 3:45 in the morning of October 5, 1916. A doctor had been attending George since September 29, only 6 days before. The DC stated he was age 62 which is at odds with his known birthdate; he was only age 60.

I was barely on the road home from the reunion, when I called George's great great grandson out west to tell him. I think I detected relief in his voice, as we had both long wondered what had happened to the man, and where he went. His resting place remains to be proven, as his death certificate tells us only that he was interred October 9 in Elizabethville, Pennsylvania. My bet was that he's in Maple Grove, but that's not for certain; it only makes sense because there's not a lot of cemeteries there, and some of his siblings happen to be interred there, but... a book listing burials there does not show him. It may have failed to turn him up if he had no stone, or he may be elsewhere. I believe he rests unmarked at Peace Church in Berrysburg, as records indicate his one child Florence, who died young, is buried there, and you'd think the child would go where family intended they themselves would go. It would also place George in the same cemetery as his parents and a few siblings, so this is where I have indicated he rests. In any case, his services were led by Rev. R. L. Meisenhelder of Trinity Lutheran Church, Harrisburg.

It would seem George went out in style; his arrangements were handled by the C. H. Mauk funeral home of Harrisburg, which was at one time the undertaker for the city. Charles H. Mauk was known for his jet black horse-drawn hearse. Services were held the Monday after George died. By 1919, however, Mauk (a breeder of Boston terriers and domestic fowls) was sued for giving a shoddy funeral to an individual who died in a state hospital and whose relatives could not be present for the service. There was a question of if a minister had been engaged since Mauk could not initially recall his name, and he refunded the minister's money to the family member saying in truth there had been none... and the family member went on to order exhumation and found there was no shroud or shoes on the deceased, and the casket was but a pine box with boards nailed on top, filled with cheesecloth and excelsior. Mauk was found guilty, but won on appeal somehow, though he was also later investigated in a separate incident for mail fraud. It seems his business closed in 1924. We must hope and assume that with George's large and present and hopefully attentive family, that he himself enjoyed the sort of funeral upon which Mauk's earlier reputation had once been built.

While it can be a funky source since much of it is based on oral stories and memories, the "Biographical Encyclopedia of Dauphin County" had this to say about George:

"Romberger, G. D., life insurance agent, Berrysburg, Pa., was born February 28, 1856, in Northumberland county; son of Gilbert and Mary (Keihl) Romberger... George D. moved to Lykens Valley with his parents when four years old. He assisted on the farm and then attended the Berrysburg Seminary, from which institution he graduated when twenty years of age. He was then principal of the Lower End, Williams township school until 1880, when he went to Harrisburg and read law two years under J.C. McAlarney. After completing his law course he formed a co-partnership with Hon. W.B. Bechtel, of Reading, Pa., in law and the insurance business. Since dissolving partnership his entire time has been given to life insurance. He was married, in 1880, to Miss Laura Miller, daughter of Major Frank Miller, of Berrysburg, Pa. Their children are: Florence M., born July 17, 1882, and died May 26, 1887; Daniel B., born January 13, 1884; Lila V., born July 19, 1886; one, not named, who was born August 21, 1887, and died September 1, 1887; George L., born August 10, 1888; Willard M., born August 6, 1889; Naomi R., born August 16, 1890; Mary F., born September 25, 1891; Franklin G., born December 2, 1893; and Donald L., born October 16, 1895."

His last address had been in Harrisburg, in a four bedroom, 1695 square foot, three-story home with basement built in 1900. His wife and grown sons Daniel, Donald, and Frank (all laborers) lived there, at least in 1915, and most likely the unmarried girls did too. After George's death it seems like the family scattered. Presumably, as a life insurance agent, George was well-insured, though it does not seem his family lived afterwards in splendor. A group of the children ended up in Philadelphia with their mom, while some married and moved.

Prior to Harrisburg and his early work in Williamstown and Reading Pennsylvania, it seems as an adult that George had stayed close to Elizabethville. An 1892 mention in the Harrisburg Telegraph says he was considering moving to Williamsport from his Elizabethville home, though it seems that did not come to pass. In 1893 as a Democrat, he was elected school director in Elizabethville's first borough election. 1894, he contemplated moving to Berrysburg per the April 14 Harrisburg Telegraph. In April 1898 the Telegraph reported that George, of Berrysburg, was visiting a day in Elizabethville, and the Patriot said in in February 1904 that George of Berrysburg was visiting the Bolton hotel in Harrisburg. January 29, 1906 the Harrisburg Patriot reported the local post office had three letters for him so he had probably moved by then if not sooner, making the leap, as some of his siblings did, from the quieter environs of Elizabethville, Berrysburg and Williamstown to the big city.

Moving to Harrisburg between 1904 and 1906 means not only that he would have just 10 years there before he died, but that many of George's children had not been in their formative years in the city, but in Elizabethville, Berrysburg and Williamstown. It likely rendered them innocent and relatively unsophisticated compared to their new peers. In the city perhaps ten or twelve years when their father died, they would have to begin to fend for themselves in the larger world.