Blair County PA Archives Biographies.....Keefer DDS, John B. May 27, 1862 - ????
************************************************
Copyright.  All rights reserved.
http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm
http://www.usgwarchives.net/pa/pafiles.htm
************************************************

File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Judy Banja http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00004.html#0000757 December 19, 2024, 7:16 am

Source: Biographical and Portrait Cyclopedia of Blair Co, PA: Philadelphia, 1892.
Author: Samuel T. Wiley

JOHN B. KEEFER, D. D. S.,
of Altoona, is one of that class of men who are self-made, and forcibly
illustrate in their lives what can be accomplished by energy and effort in
overcoming apparently insurmountable obstacles. He is a son of Rev. Joseph
and Christina (Lukenbach) Keefer, and was born near Liverpool, in Perry
county, Pennsyvania, May 27, 1862. As the name would indicate, the Keefer
family is of German descent. Dr. Keefer's paternal grandfather, Rev. Joseph
Keefer, sr., was born in Dauphin county, where he died near Millersburg at
the advanced age of eighty-nine years. He was a farmer by occupation, and
having served acceptably for some time as a minister in the River Brethren
church, he was elected as a bishop in that religious denomination on account
of his piety, zeal, and uprightness of life. He married and reared a family,
and one of his sons, Rev. Joseph Keefer (father), was born in 1813 in Dauphin
county. In 1838 he removed to Perry county, where he resided until 1864, when
he returned to near Millersburg, in Dauphin county, and has resided there
ever since. He had followed farming as an occupation, except when engaged in
ministerial duties. He is a member of the Brethren, or Dunkard, church, in
which he has served for many years as a minister. He is now the presiding
officer in his district, and although seventy-three years of age, yet never
allows anything to prevent his discharge of every duty of his responsible
position. He is a republican in politics, and married Christina Lukenbach, a
native of Dauphin county and a member of the Brethren church, who died at
thirty-eight years of age, leaving a family of five sons and three daughters.
   John B. Keefer was reared in Dauphin county until he was nine years of age,
and then went to an uncle of his, with whom he resided for some time. After
this he lived with various other of his relatives until he was seventeen
years of age, when he went to Harrisburg, where he learned the trade of
machinist, which he followed at the State capital for three years. He then
came to Altoona, remained for one month, and went to Pittsburg, where he
worked for some time, and then during the following year worked in Pittsburg,
Wheeling, West Virginia, and Martin's Ferry, Dayton, and Cleveland, Ohio. At
the end of the year he returned again to Altoona, where he worked three years
in the car shops, and during the last year of that time he spent his evenings
in the study of dentistry and in attending the International Business college
of Altoona. He pursued his dental studies under Dr. N. P. Duffy, of the
Mountain City, and then entered the dental department of the Vanderbilt
university, of Nashville, Tennessee, from which he was graduated in the class
of 1888. Immediately after graduation he returned to Altoona and opened an
office for the practice of dentistry, which he has followed successfully
until the present time.
   On February 4, 1889, Dr. Keefer was united in marriage to Mary E., daughter
of Harriet Auxen, of Harrisburg. Dr. and Mrs. Keefer have one child, a
daughter, named Harriet C.
   Dr. Keefer is a republican in politics, and a member of the Church of God of
Altoona, of which he is chorister and treasurer. He is a member of White Cross
Lodge, No. 354, Knights of Pythias, and Altoona Council Lodge, No. 152, Junior
Order of United American Mechanics. His dental parlors are on the corner of
Eighth and Twelfth streets, and have been carefully fitted up for the
convenience and comfort of his patrons. They are fully equipped with all the
late inventions and modern appliances of dentistry. Dr. Keefer is a member of
the Central Pennsylvania Dental society, and the Pennsylvania State Dental
society. He has been preeminently the architect of his own career, and the
hewer out of his own fortune.

Additional Comments:
Originally submitted 2001. Transcribed by Ruth Curfman, rcurfman@home.com

This file has been created by a form at http://www.usgwarchives.net/pafiles/

File size: 4.5 Kb