1850's Badge Made by Civil War Era Union Soldier w Complete Family History

Description

C. 1855 Pre Civil War era apprentice made badge by (later) 47th Pennsylvania Union Soldier Franklin Sieger of Allentown Pennsylvania.
Frank was born in Lehigh County, Pennsylvania, on 30 April 1838.
For history on Frank Sieger please see below:
The son of Joseph P. Sieger (1811-1869), a native of Siegersville, Lehigh County (now Orefield, Lehigh County), and Naomi Amilia (Kern) Sieger (1818-1887), who was also a Lehigh County native. In 1850, Frank, James and William Sieger lived in North Whitehall Township, Lehigh County with their parents and siblings Caroline, Matt and Eli.
Their father was described as a Tinker by that years federal census enumerator, as was William George, who also resided with the Sieger family at this time. That designation was meant to indicate that both men were tinsmiths. The Sieger family home was located in the community of Orefield in North Whitehall Township, Lehigh County, that the familys patriarch, tinsmith Joseph Sieger, had amassed real and personal estate holdings valued at ,845 (roughly ,100 in 2022 dollars), and that William, Caroline, Madison, and Elizabeth were all attending school while Frank was working beside their father as a tinsmithsignaling that tinsmithing was most likely the familys profession.
By 1860, the Sieger household included Frank and William Sieger, their parents, and siblings Caroline, Madison, Elizabeth, and Oliver.
Frank, James, and William Sieger were among the many blood brothers who also became brothers-in-arms when they enlisted for military service with the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry during the American Civil War.
All three would ultimately survive the war but they would each serve in different companies of the regimentand their individual life journeys would diverge dramatically, post-war, within a few short years of their having returned home to the Great Keystone State.
Among the 47th Pennsylvanians listed on the casualty rosters was Private James M. Sieger of Company K. According to the special veterans census that would later be taken in 1890, he had sustained a wound above one of his knees during the Battle of Fishers Hill.
The Post-War Life of Franklin Sieger During the late 1860s, Frank Sieger, the oldest brother of William and James Sieger, relocated to Mercer County, Pennsylvania, where he opened a tinsmith business and met, married and began his own family with Zidania Virginia Locke Homer (1845-1928), a daughter of David and Elizabeth B. (Miller) Homer. Their children were: Nora Elizabeth (1867-1942), who was born on 5 September 1867 and went on to marry and build a life with Gustave Edwin Sussdorff (1843-1903), M.D.first on the East Coast and then in the San Francisco Bay Area of California; Emma, who was born circa 1869; Dot, who was born in May 1872; Daisey, who was born in August 1876 and went on to marry Michael Aloysius McGinnis (1882-1949); andDavid Homer Sieger(1879-1945; surname later spelled as Saeger), who was born in Greenville, Mercer County on 1 September 1879, who also later relocated to the San Francisco Bay Area of California.
Documented as a resident of Greenville, Mercer County, Pennsylvania by the 1880 federal census enumerator, Frank Sieger was described as a tin pedlar [sic] by the census taker.
Living with him were his wife and children: Nora, Emma, Daisey, and David. By 1910, Franklin and Zidania Sieger, had relocated to the Youngstown home of their daughter, Daisy, who had married Michael McGinnis. But by 1920, Frank and Zidania had become lodgers in the Youngstown home of William Drake and his wife, Emma.
Frank Sieger subsequently passed away in Youngstown Ohio. Following his death on 11 December 1922, he was laid to rest at that citys Oak Hill Cemetery.Just over a week later, his widow, Zidania, filed for her U.S. Civil War Widows Pension from Ohio on 20 December 1920, according to U.S. Civil War Pension records.
Note:This death year of 1920 is also supported by the 1917 and 1918 obituaries of Frank Siegers siblings, Elizabeth (Sieger) Butz and James M. Sieger, which indicated that Frank was one of their surviving siblings and that his residence at that time was in Youngstown, Ohio. For a complete history see ref source:https://47thpennsylvaniavolunteers.com/regimental-band/roster-2-partial-regimental-band-47th-pennsylvania/the-sieger-brothers-three-very-different-life-journeys/