Josephine Genevieve Esslinger

Josephine Genevieve Esslinger, 94, died peacefully surrounded by family on Sunday, October 6, 2019 at Pathstone Living in Mankato.

Josephine was born on May 8, 1925 in St. Cloud, Minnesota. Due to her father’s death at age three, she was sent to the St. Cloud orphanage. After a year at the orphanage, she went to live with her grandma. She has fond memories of life on the farm until her grandma died when she was 12 years old. She then returned to the orphanage and was assigned the chore of caring for the babies in the nursery, which initiated a strong passion of caring for others that lasted her entire life. At 16, she began volunteering at the Breckenridge hospital and then moved to Minneapolis.

She married Richard Esslinger and had four children, living on several international and state-side military bases. She always spoke positively of life as an army wife and embraced new experiences and friends in many different locations - especially putting to use her fluent German (the she learned from her Grandma) to make lifelong friends in Europe.

She worked as a waitress for over 50 years and continued as a hostess at Byerlys until the age of 75. She loved serving people and treated her job with classy professionalism.

She loved dancing, playing cards, reading, and crocheting. She made many treasured crocheted gifts for friends and family. She especially loved time with family, cherishing her children and grandchildren.

Over the years, her devout Catholic practices developed into a deep relationship with her Savior that grew with each passing year and blessed those around her. If you visited her in the morning, she would often be reading her Bible and praying.

She is preceded in death by her daughter, Joanne; and survived by her three sons, Tom, Dave, Dan (Clarice); grandchildren, James, Michelle, Joseph, Kent, Paul, and Katie; and several great-grandchildren.

A visitation will be held at 10am with a service at 11am on Saturday, October 12th, at the Northview ~ North Mankato Mortuary.