Evening Republican, Volume 22, Number 93, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 April 1919 — Pershing Fulfills Hope of Ancestor [ARTICLE]

Pershing Fulfills Hope of Ancestor

Grmmsburg, Pa. —Gen. John J. Pershing fulfilled the wish of an ancestor that a member of the Pershing family should-suve Al-sace-Lorraina when he led the victorious • American armies against the Germans.. This fact is disclosed by Rev. Justus N. Pershing, a cousin ,of General Pershing, who Ims made public a letter written in Alsace-Lor-raine more than 200 years ago by Frederick Pershing, General Pershing's gremt-great-grand father. In this Tetter the general’s ancestor expressed the hope that his son, Frederick Pershing! Jr., or his descendants, “would come hack some day and redeem the fair lands of AlsaceLorraine ft-om oppression." According to the letter, the Pershings lived In the village of Kehe in Alsace-Lorraine in 1774 and fought under Emperor (’buries against the Magyars. Soon after that, when a law was passed that all able-bodied men between the ages of sixteen and fifty must join the landwehr tc .protect their country from ravages h.v the Austrians, Frederick Pershing, Sr., sent ids son to America. Frederick Pershing, Jr., reached this country in 1749 and, after marrying u Miss Wyant in Baltimore, settled in Westmoreland county, Pennsylvania. where General Pershing’s grandparents were'born.