Margaret "Maggie" Mary Olinger

Maggie Olinger, Longest Residing Pioneer Woman, Dies In Cheyenne

Mrs. Margaret Mary (Maggie) Olinger died unexpectedly last Thursday evening from heart failure. She had been hospitalized overnight in the DePaul Hospital at Cheyenne for what was assumed to be a minor stomach disorder.

For a number of years Mrs. Olinger has been considered to be the longest residing pioneer woman of Niobrara County.

Margaret Mary Pfister was born January 25, 1880 at Junction City, Kan. She and her twin brother, Valentine, were the first of 13 children born of John and Ellen Josephine Pfister, which included three sets of twins. At the age of four she moved by train with her mother and three brothers and sisters, Valentine, John, and Jane, to Cheyenne. Their stock, two wagons and other belongings had been shipped by train and they were met in Cheyenne by John Pfister, the father, and Edward Arnold, an uncle, who had preceeded them to Wyoming. The mother and father each drove a wagon on to a location in the hills southwest of Lusk. Mr. Arnold, who still resides in Lusk, drove the stock. Five years later the Pfister family moved to a new location approximately nine miles southeast of Lusk and here built a ranch which they operated the remainder of their lives.

During the years of her schooling the school terms were only three months long, so she finished her schooling at Junction City, Kansas, and later attended the Grand Island Business School in Nebraska. She taught school in various locations over the state, the Tom Bell ranch, at Uba between Orin Junction and Wheatland, the 77 ranch north of Manville, Sherman's Ranch northeast of Lingle, at a Swedish community between Pine Bluffs and Albin, and various other areas.

In 1909 she and Albert Olinger were married at the Pfister Ranch home and they started ranching north of Lusk near Hat Creek. They were the parents of two children, Donald J. Olinger of Cheyenne and Isabel Williams of Portsmouth, N.H. Her husband died in July 1954. Surviving are her children, Isabel Williams and Donald; four sisters Mrs. Frankie Anderson, Long Beach, Cal., Mrs. Andrew Joy, Kaycee, Mrs. Ella Dean, Node, and Mrs. Annie Wasserburger, Hat Creek; five brothers Valentine Pfister, Node; Edwin Pfister, Hat Creek, Richard Pfister, Sr. Edgemont, John Pfister, Sheridan, and William Pfister, Everett, Wash.; and three grandchildren..

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