Abigail Geisinger
Abigail Geisinger was an American philanthropist and founder of Geisinger Medical Center.
Biography
Abigail Geisinger was born in 1827 to Isaac Cornelison and Mary Pancoast. Her grandfather, Joseph Cornelison, was an early settler of Danville, Pennsylvania. When Abigail was four months old, her mother Mary died, and Isaac, unable to raise a small child on his own, had Mary stay with her uncle James Pancoast in Wayne County, Ohio. Abigail moved back to Pennsylvania as a teenager to live with her father, who at this time was working as a wagonmaker in Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania. Isaac died when Mary was sixteen, and she then married her cousin, Jacob Cornelison, and ran a hotel named the White Swan with him.At the onset of the American Civil War, Jacob was drafted into the Union Army. He died of dysentery during the war leaving Abigail widowed. She later remarried in 1866 to George F. Geisinger, who was a bookkeeper and investor in the local iron industry. Upon his death in 1883, Abigail was widowed a second time and used her elevated financial status to contribute to her community.
In 1912, Abigail Geisinger purchased 14 acres of land in Danville upon which she intended to build a hospital in memory of her second husband, George. She broke ground on May 1, 1913 and what is now the Geisinger Medical Center was completed in 1915. In addition to the hospital, Abigail donated large amounts of her wealth towards the Danville YMCA, and established a support group for widowed women named the Home for Friendless Women.
Abigail Geisinger died at the George F. Geisinger hospital on July 8, 1921, after suffering from a fall three weeks earlier.