Puella Dornblaser

Puella E. Dornblaser (October 7, 1851 – March 17, 1904) was an American newspaper editor and temperance activist based in Pennsylvania. Her temperance education and missionary work were focused especially in immigrant and mining communities.

Puella Dornblaser, in an 1899 publication.

Early life

Puella E. Dornblaser was one of eight children born on a farm in Clinton County, Pennsylvania, to Peter Dornblaser and Elizabeth Shaffer Dornblaser.[1] She attended Susquehanna University.[2]

Her older brother Thomas Franklin Dornblaser (1841-1941) was a Civil War veteran and a longtime Lutheran minister in Chicago.[3]

Career

In 1875, she lived in Valley Falls, Kansas with her older sister Amanda J. Townsend,[4] and edited a department of the Oskaloosa Independent.[5] In 1876, she was sworn in as First Assistant Enrolling Secretary of the Kansas House of Representatives.[6]

Back in her home state, Dornblaser became Clinton County president of the Women's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) in 1886.[7] She was vice-president of the Pennsylvania WCTU for eight years, and served a superintendent of the organization's mission among immigrants and miners.[8][9][10] She was president of the Synodical Society of the English Lutheran Church for ten years, president of the Women's Mission Society of Central Pennsylvania, and worked in various capacities with the Eagle's Mere Chautauqua Society. She was also a vice president of the Ladies' Aid Society of Lock Haven Hospital.[2] She was in charge of the Girls' Industrial School at Williamsport, and superintendent of the Board of Charities in that city.[11] She sometimes used the pen name "Maud Muller" in newspaper writings.[12]

A contemporary observer described Dornblaser as "universally acknowledged as the wittiest and most original woman in the W. C. T. U. ... being eminently fitted for this work by her bright, vivacious manner."[13]

Personal life

Puella E. Dornblaser died in 1904, aged 52 years, after several months' illness. Her remains were buried in a Dornblaser family plot at St. Paul's Lutheran Church Cemetery in Clinton County, Pennsylvania.[11]

Dornblaser Field in Missoula, Montana is named for her nephew Paul Logan Dornblaser (1887-1918), who died in World War I and was awarded posthumous Silver Stars for valor.[14]

References
  1. Dornblaser v. Sugar Valley Mutual Fire Insurance Company of Clinton County, Pennsylvania Superior Court Reports (1912): 537.
  2. Commemorative biographical record of central Pennsylvania (J. H. Beers & Co. 1898): 631, 655.
  3. Thomas Franklin Dornblaser, My Life Story for Young and Old (1930).
  4. Untitled news item, Oskaloosa Independent (March 25, 1904): 4. via Newspapers.com
  5. Untitled news item, Oskaloosa Independent (October 16, 1875): 3. via Newspapers.com
  6. House Journal of the Legislative Assembly of the State of Kansas (State printer 1876): 350.
  7. J. Milton Furey, Historical and Biographical Work: Or, Past and Present of Clinton County (Pennsylvania Grit Printing House 1892): 165.
  8. Report of the 22nd Annual Convention of the National Women's Christian Temperance Union (Women's Temperance Publishing Association 1895): 177.
  9. "A Free Entertainment" Daily News (February 10, 1896): 2. via Newspapers.com
  10. "W. C. T. U. Financial Affairs in a Flourishing Condition" Harrisburgh Telegraph (October 17, 1798): 1. via Newspapers.com
  11. Obituary notice, Lutheran Observer (March 18, 1904): 30.
  12. Untitled obituary item, Valley Falls New Era (March 18, 1904): 4. via Newspapers.com
  13. "Notes" New Castle News (October 10, 1892): 3. via Newspapers.com
  14. Kim Briggeman, "UM's Dornblaser Field Named for WWI Hero who Died on French Battlefield" Missoulian (September 22, 2014).
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