Sidney Joseph Repplier
Sidney Joseph Repplier was born on January 5, 1881 in Reading Pennsylvania. His parents were Jacob Lancaster Repplier and Sidney Berghaus Haggerty Repplier. He attended Princeton University for one year and transferred to The University of Pennsylvania from which he graduated as a Doctor of Medicine in 1904. In 1906 he was a member of the first American Mission to Fez Morocco about which he authored a detailed report. After three months in Morocco he traveled through Europe spending six months in Vienna Austria where he continued his medical studies. Shortly after his return to the United States he wrote the following autobiographical sketch for the Princeton University Year Book:
November 30, 1908,
"As you may remember, force of circumstances compelled me to leave Princeton three years before I wanted to, so that my wanderings began at a very early age. Fate led me at once to the large and speedy city of Philadelphia where, for four years, I groped among cadavers, capsules and carbuncles in the University of Pennsylvania. Stewart Lawrence appeared a year later, and in three years Blais Cole and Bill Newell blew in. When four years had passed, I was turned out with a diploma. I then served three months as resident physician at the Children’s Seashore House, Atlantic City, and four months at Girard College, Philadelphia, before beginning my term of eighteen months at the Presbyterian Hospital in Philadelphia. At the end of that time, through the kind offices of Dr. S. S. Stryker, Class of ‘63, I was appointed Physician to the First American Mission to Fez. Mr. Gummere, a cousin of Dr. Stryker, is the American Minister to Morocco, and it was as a member of his staff that I spent three months in Morocco, and of these, two in the capital, Fez. From there I went to Vienna, taking six weeks for the trip through Italy. In that festive village I stayed six months, studying more medicine and learning the “Merry Widow” waltz. About fourteen months ago I came back to this country, and since then I have been patiently waiting for the goods to deliver themselves. The best thing I have done is to become engaged to Miss Charlotte W. Neall, of Chestnut Hill. When I started this thing, I thought that my autobiography would occupy much more space, but I can’t think of another darn thing."
In 1910 he married Charlotte Walbaum Neall, daughter of Frank Lesley Neall and Wilhelmine Marie Louise Walbaum. At that time he converted from Catholicism to the Episcopal faith. As a result his mother had little or no contact with him for the rest of her life (she herself was a convert to Catholicism). They had four children together: Adelaide Neall Repplier (who died in infancy), Charlotte Neall Repplier (who died as a young adult during a visit to relatives in Chile), Sidney Neall Repplier and Frances Neall Repplier. They lived most of their married life on Roumfort Road in Mt. Airy, Pennsylvania where they built a house on property purchased from Charlotte's sister, Adelaide Walbaum Neall. Dr. Repplier was a Major in the Army Medical Corps during the First World War. He practiced medicine privately before joining the Curtis Company medical staff in Philadelphia where he worked for 37 years.
On February 25, 1949 Dr. Sidney J. Repplier and Mrs. Charlotte Neall Repplier traveled to Los Angeles to attend the wedding of their daughter, Frances Neall Repplier, to Lyman Ryan Hanson of Wahoo Nebraska. Shortly thereafter the newlyweds settled in the Philadelphia area.
Please visit the Repplier Family guestbook